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)
ELIZABETH BUSHELL (6)
ELIZABETH BUSHELL is the second child and the eldest of the three daughters of James and Mary Bushell. She was baptised in Deal on 23 May 1773, soon after her parents had come to Deal from Margate.
Her mother was Mary Hogbean.
Elizabeth was 13 when her father died. He was given a pauper’s burial, so the family must already have been in difficult circumstances. Her elder brother James would already have been at work, and possibly Elizabeth too. Her youngest sister was only five, so her widowed mother would have needed all the support she could get.
Elizabeth was nearly 21 when she bore her first child.
Baptism. St Leonard, Deal.
1794 Apr 25 Thomas son of Elizabeth Bushell A Base Child.
For a single woman to bear a child was a disgrace, though it was not unusual for brides to be pregnant when they married. Elizabeth may have stayed on in her mother’s home to begin with, with Mary helping to raise Thomas. But two further children appeared, raising a different possibility.
Baptisms. St Leonard, Deal.
1797 May 14 Daniel Allen, Son of Elizabeth Bushell Illegit
Allen may be the surname of the child’s father.
1802 May 30 Henry Son of Elizabeth Bushell illegit
It is unlikely that Mary would have borne the social stigma of so many fatherless children in her house. Indeed, the number points to the possibility that Elizabeth may have been a prostitute. If so, she may well have been earning enough to have her own cottage or rooms. It is less clear whether she was already a professional when Thomas was conceived. He might have been fathered by someone Elizabeth hoped to marry, though the absence of a second surname makes that doubtful. Or she might have had an employer who took advantage of her. In any case, once the first child was born, it would have been considerably more difficult for her to find a husband and it might have been then that she turned to prostitution to support herself and her child.
In 1811, Elizabeth’s second son, Daniel was buried, aged 14.
Thomas and Henry both became boatbuilders and raised families in Deal.
In the 1841 census Elizabeth Bushell is living in Lower Street with 70-year-old Susanna Beaney, who is a greengrocer, 30-year-old James Beaney, ag. lab, and 9 year-old Mary Beaney. Elizabeth is said to be 65 (rounded down from 68) and a pauper.
Lower Street has since been renamed High Street, and is the main shopping centre. Shingle has piled up on the beach, making it higher than the centre of the town. There were three parallel streets: Beach Street, Middle Street and Lower Street, as you moved away from the seafront.
Elizabeth died four years later.
Burial. St Leonard, Deal.
1845 Dec 14 Elizabeth Bushell Middle Street 72
NEXT GENERATION: 5. BUSHELL-FROST
PREVIOUS GENERATIONS: 7. BUSHELL-HOGBEAN