Fay Sampson’s Family History
This site is a work-in-progress. There is a massive amount to cover. I have included both male and female lines, and some go back 30 generations. Keep coming back for more.
I have numbered the generations working backwards from my own as (1)
RICHARD CORY and ANN LANGLEY (5)
RICHARD CORY was born in Newton Pagnell and baptised in Milton Keynes on 2 Nov 1784. He was the eldest son of Arthur Corey and Elizabeth Wanstall, or Wastell.
The1851 census for Deal gives Richard’s birthplace as Newport, Bucks. Robert Smith, who became Baron Carrington, owned land in Moulsloe and Newport Pagnell, both close to Milton Keynes. In the early 1800s he was Captain of Deal Castle, and the owner of property in Sheep Fold (Prospect Place) in Deal.[1] A story has been passed down that Richard was once the gardener at Walmer Castle, and that there was a portrait of him there. If this was not Walmer but Deal Castle, then it appears very likely that Richard worked for Lord Carrington in Buckinghamshire, and was then offered employment in Deal. This would explain how he came to move such a distance.
His eldest son is the first Cory baptism in the Deal registers.
His mother Elizabeth Wanstall may also have had a connection with Kent. There were Wanstalls in Deal from at least 1768.
After he left, Richard’s parents remained in Bedfordshire until they died.
Richard was 23 when he married his first wife, Ann Amess, in Deal. This was in the second half of the reign of George III.
Deal Marriages
1807 18 Apr Richard Cory, bachelor of this parish, and Ann Amess, spinster of this parish, by Banns.
Witnesses: Richard Piper, Mary Amess
Both bride and groom were able to sign their own names.[2]
Ann already had an illegitimate son, Henry Amess, baptised 12 Sep 1806 in Deal. Whether Richard was the father is a matter for conjecture, though if he were we might have expected them to marry sooner. Henry was raised in the Cory household.[3]
The couple’s son Richard was baptised in Deal on 8 May 1808. There was also a daughter Sarah, born 1810, who died in 1814.
On 20 February 1812 John Corey was made a freeman of Deal, so by then Richard was not the only man there of that surname.
Ann died in 1819.
The following year Richard took a second wife, Ann Langley.
ANN LANGLEY was christened in the parish of St Leonard’s, Deal, on 14 May 1797, the daughter of the boatbuilder Morris Langley and Mary Clayson. She was thus thirteen years younger than the widower Richard.
She had an older sister baptised in Deal, and may have had other siblings too.
Their marriage took place in 1820.
Deal Marriages
1820 12 Sep Richard Cory, widower of this parish, and Ann Langley, spinster of this parish, by Banns.
Witnesses: Thomas Langley, Mary Price
Thomas Langley’s relationship to Ann is not known. He could be an unknown brother or uncle. The 1801 census says there were three males living in her family at the time.
Ann Langley, like Richard’s first wife Ann Amess, signed her own name.
Richard junior, the only child of Richard’s first marriage, would have been 12. There is no evidence yet of whether he lived with his father and stepmother after the marriage. He may already have been out at work.
In the 1821 census the following year, Richard is recorded as a ‘victualler’, licensee of the Noah’s Ark Inn in Ark Lane. The house had a rateable value of £6, the stables and sheds £1.10s and the land £4.15s. The address of the pub is sometimes given as Peter Street. It probably occupied a corner site.
The pub was an old one. Noah’s Ark is included in a list of Deal inns in 1680. In the 18th century, in the heyday of the Deal smugglers, contraband goods were landed by luggers and then taken inland by horsemen. Noah’s Ark was one of the two inns they used to stable their horses. It was ‘situated amid fields and gardens in the rear of the town’.
Richard may have worked as a gardener, with Ann helping to run the pub.
The family were living at the Noah’s Ark for the births of the first five children.
Baptisms. Deal.
1821 27 Jul John Langley CORY son o f Richard & Ann. Noah’s Ark Lane. Victualler
1822 18 Oct Morris Clayson CORY son of Richard & Ann. Ark Lane. Victualler
This first Morris Clayson died aged six, on 5 Nov 1928.[4]
1824 4 Aug Henry Morris CORY son of Richard & Ann. Noah’s Ark Lane. Victualler
1826 2 Jun Mary Ann Langley CORY daughter of Richard & Ann. Noah’s Ark Lane. Victualler
1828 5 Mar Jane CORY daughter of Richard & Ann. Peter Street. Victualler.
But the following year the family have moved to Fosters Alley and Richard is now a labourer, a step down in the social scale.
1829 11 Dec Morris Clayson CORY son of Richard & Ann. Foster’s Alley. Labourer.
The names of these children draw heavily on those of Ann’s family, rather than Richard’s. This may reflect the Langleys higher social status. Ann’s mother was descended from a family of gentlemen. Morris Langley was a boatbuilder with his own yard. The naming of children can be used to flatter relatives, in the hope of an inheritance. Not all the Claysons were well-to-do, however. In 1814 36-yer-old John Clayson died in the Poor House.
Richard junior, son of Richard Cory and his first wife Ann Amess, was by now a labourer too. He was living in Lower Street in 1830, when he had his own son Richard baptised. Richard and Ann, with their growing family, moved to the same street, and now Richard senior is recorded as having another occupation.
1832 25 Mar Thomas William CORY son of Richard & Ann. Lower Street. Gardener.
For the rest of his life, Richard remained a gardener. It may be that during his years at the Noah’s Ark Inn, ‘situated amid fields and gardens’, he had worked at horticulture to supplement his income as a publican, or he may indeed have been a gardener at Deal Castle.
Richard is listed as a gardener in Kelly’s directory.
The family was still living in Lower Street when the next daughter was born.
1836 19 Oct Henrietta COREY d. of Richard & Ann. Lower St. Gardener
Two more daughters followed. Sarah Brice was born in 1839 and Julia in 1841.
In the 1841 Census the family were living at the same address.
1841 Census. Deal. Lower Street
Richard Corey 55 Gardener Y
Ann do 45 Y
Mary do 15 Y
Henry do 14 Y
Jane Coery 13 Y
Mary do 11 Y
Thomas do 9 Y
Henneretta do 5 Y
Sarah do 2 Y
Julia do 3 mths Y
In 1844 their son John married Elizabeth Murray Norris in Deal. He died in 1909 at Bridge in Kent.[5]In 1848, Morris married Elizabeth Thompson in Deal.[6]
In 1849, Ann’s third cousin Thomas Clayson Mourilyan, died. He had been born in Prospect Place, Deal, where Lord Carrington had once owned property. His father, and probably Thomas himself, was a gentleman. After his death, an imposter stole his identity. The man posed as a doctor and delivered a child. He was later prosecuted for identity theft and the case was reported in the newspapers.[7]
The family have not been found in the 1841 census, but in 1851 they were living in Alfred Square. Richard’s birthplace is given as Newport Pagnell.
1851 Census. Deal. 17 Alfred Square
Richard Cory Head Mar 65 Agr Labourer Bucks, Newport
Ann do Wife Mar 53 Kent, Deal
Henrietta do Daur 14 Kent, Deal
Sarah B do Daur 11 Kent, Deal
William Kennett Visitor U 78 Boat Builder Kent, Dover
Thomas Carr Visitor U 63 Mariner Kent, Deal
William Smellar Visitor U 37 Mariner Kent, Deal
The three men may have been visitors in the social sense, it is more likely that they were lodgers. In the 1851 census, William Smellar has moved with Richard and Ann and is listed as a boarder.
The eldest son, John Langley Cory, followed his father’s early career as a publican and became the licensee of the Deal Hoy in Duke Street.
In 1857, Thomas William married Elizabeth Ann May.
On 19 Jan 1848, Henrietta married Edward Penn.
Morris Clayson Cory emigrated to New Zealand in 1858. He died two years later, on 6 Oct 1860, during a rescue attempt in the finest tradition of Deal boatmen.
One day October, 1860, a small schooner was seen to be in difficulties off Timaru, but a strong S.S.W. gale sprang up with such a heavy sea that no boat could be launched that night, and the boatmen had to content themselves with burning flares. Next morning, the Deal men attempted to launch a lifeboat, but were beaten back owing to the lack of experienced helpers. Next day they launched a little boat with two oars, and attempted to reach the schooner. Soon, however, they shipped a sea, and then a large wave capsized them. Of the five men in the boat Bowles and Roberts were dashed up by the waves and saved. Cory sank at once. Bowbyes clung to an oar for some time, but sank from exhaustion, while Foster, after clinging to the overturned boat for three-quarters of an hour, was washed off and cast alive on shore. (Laker’s History of Deal) [8]
When Richard and Ann’s daughter Henrietta married the boatman Edward Penn in 1858, the Cory family were still living in Alfred Square. By 1861, with all the children now adults, the 76-year-old Richard was still at work, and once more described as a gardener, but he and his wife Ann had moved in with Henrietta and her family in Chapel Street. This time his birthplace is given as Milton Keynes.
1861 Census. Deal. 192 Chapel Street
Edward Penn Head Mar 28 Boatman Kent, Deal
Henrietta Penn Wife Mar 24 Boatman’s wife Kent, Deal
Sarah Penn Daur 2 Kent, Deal
Edward Penn Son 1 Kent, Deal
Richard Cory Father in law Mar 76 Gardener Bucks, M.K.
Ann Cory Mother in law Mar 64 Gardener’s wife Kent, Deal
William Sneller Boarder U 45 Boatman Kent, Deal
Ann died in 1869. She was 72.
On the 16 Jan 1871, Henrietta’s husband, Edward Penn, was drowned when the lugger Reform went out to answer a distress signal and smashed into the Pier with the loss of eight lives, one of the worst disasters in the history of the Deal boatmen. It was commemorated by an epic poem in the local newspaper.[9]
Richard, still a gardener at 86, continued with to live with the widowed Henrietta, now in Chapel Lane.
1871 Census. Deal. 3 Chapel Lane
Henrietta Penn Head W 34
Sarah Penn Daur 12 Scholar
Edward Penn Son 11 Do
John Penn Son 9 Do
Elizabeth Penn Daur 7 Do
Henrietta Penn Daur 1 Do
Richard Cory Father Widr 86 Gardener
Richard died later that year, on 9 Aug 1871, aged 87.
His daughter Henrietta lived on to bring up her fatherless children. She died on 5 May 1907.[10]
[1] David Dennis
[2] Unless otherwise stated, Deal BMDs are from the Kent Family History Society’s transcripts on microfiche.
[3] David Dennis
[4] LDS Family Record
[5] LDS Family Record
[6] LDS Family Record
[7] Denise Parmentier
[8] A much fuller version of this story can be found at https://corysociety.wordpress.com/new-zealand/
[9] 5. CORY-LANGLEY Reform Disaster
[10] LDS Family Record
NEXT GENERATION: 4. CORY-MAY
PREVIOUS GENERATIONS: 6. CORY-WANSTALL