Elizabeth Ann RANDELL 1860
Elizabeth Ann Randell was born in Ixworth, Suffolk in October 1860. She was the eldest child from the marriage of Nathaniel Randell and Catherine Ann Parr.
Just after Elizabeth Ann’s second birthday her mother gave birth to a second child but sadly both mother and child died within months of the birth.
Following this traumatic begining I imagine that other female family became involved in her upbringing. At least until the arrival of Emma Drake when Elizabeth Ann was aged five. What ever the arrangements between the marriages, once Emma arrived with her son Albert Ernest. The expanding family appears to have lived as a single unit under one roof. This is significant in that Elizabeth Ann ultimately married Albert Ernest.
Whilst the single most interesting aspect Elizabeth’s life must be her marriage, a minor intrigue is fashioned in 1881 when Elizabeth Ann was found as a visitor with Sarah Hart. Emma Drake and her son Albert had lived with Phillip Hart prior to marrying Nathaniel. Sarah Hart who lived in Cambridgeshire was aged 63, unmarried and described as an Intrist which appears to be an archaic term for Investor or share holder.
The relationship between Sarah Hart and Elizabeth Randell was stated as niece-aunt but technically it appears it was niece-great aunt because Sarah Hart and Elizabeth Ann’s grandmother appear to have been sisters.
On 17 August 1882, Elizabeth Ann Randell, aged 21, married Albert Ernest Drake aged 23. The marriage took place in Ixworth Parish Church and was officially witnessed by their combined parents Nathaniel and Emma Randell and Ellen Sawyer who I assume to be a friend.
My immediate reaction was that it must be a mistake, as the groom was surely the brides half brother but in fact Albert Ernest was Emma Drake's illegitimate son, and had no blood connection with Nathaniel. Elizabeth Ann was Catherine Ann and Nathaniel's daughter and not a blood relative to either Emma or Albert Ernest Drake. Having said that they do appear to have grown up in the same home, as I assume, some loose version of brother and sister.
If that wasn’t enough, there’s the further element of complexity, in that Albert Ernest Drake first appeared in a census living with his mother at the home of District Registrar Phillip Hart, who appears to be a cousin of his wife’s mother.
In the 1891 census, which was the first after the marriage, Elizabeth A Drake was living in High Street, Ixworth. She had three children, Hebert, Nora and Bertha but her husband, Albert Ernest Drake was a visitor at the London home of Phillip Hinchley Hart, the son of Phillip Hart, whom he and his then single mother Emma once lived.
Ten years later, in 1901 Elizabeth Ann Drake was a widow living in Cemetery Rd, St Margaret's Suffolk. By the 1911 Census, Elizabeth Ann Drake was aged 50, and had not remarried. The family lived at 42 Warwick Street, Ipswich, Suffolk. She was living with her three children, each who was over twenty. On modern maps of Ipswich, Warwick Road and Cemetery Road are very close. Hebert's War Service Record stated he worked in Spring Street which intersects Warwick Street.
Elizabeth Ann Drake died 21 May 1925 aged 64 years. She left effects of £75 to her son Herbert Drake describe as 'Secretary to a Motor Engineering Company'.
Elizabeth and Albert had the following children;
|
Albert Ernest DRAKE 1859
The life of Albert Ernest Drake has all the elements of a Thomas Hardy novel in which young Albert is born illegitimate but adopted and raised by kindly Nathaniel Randell. Halfway through the narrative he falls in love and secretly marries his adopted sister, but immediately abandons her to fulfil his life long dream to became a draper. In the final chapter he returns to Ixworth a broken man only to die in her forgiving arms. That's not exactly the real story of Albert Ernest Drake, but it's close.
Albert Ernest Drake, who seems to have been known as simply as Ernest was the illegitimate son of Emma Drake and father unknown. Ernest first appeared in the census of 1861, when he was recorded in the care of his single mother Emma Drake. Emma was noted as aged 24 and unmarried. Ernest, who was born around July 1859, was her only son. Mother and child were staying at the home of District Registrar, Phillip Hart and his wife Elizabeth.
Increasing the complexity of the story, Phillip Hart was a relative, most probably a cousin, of Catherine Ann Parr. Catherine Ann in 1861 was married to Nathaniel Randell but she died the following year clearing the way for Emma Drake.
By 1871, Ernest was living with his mother Emma and Nathaniel Randell who Emma had married in 1866. The Randell household of 1871 comprised seven individuals, a servant, Nathaniel and his wife Emma plus infants Ellen Marion and Edwin Mullenger. The remaining members of the household were Albert Ernest Drake, stepson, aged 12 and Elizabeth Ann Randell, age 10, daughter of Nathaniel and his first wife Catherine Ann.
Ten years later, on the night of 3 April 1881, Ernest was recorded as a Draper’s Assistant in Aldershot. The following year, 17 August 1882, he returned to official documentation, being recorded as the groom in his marriage to Elizabeth Ann Randell in Ixworth.
From a purely medical perspective there is no close genetic link between Albert Ernest Drake and his wife/stepsister, Elizabeth Ann Randell. There is an outside chance that they are related through the Hart family, but way beyond that, their relationship is confusing in the sense that, they appear to have grown up in one household as siblings. The sense of it being rather odd, is reinforced by them never appearing together as a married couple in any census. Also worth noting, their first child was born several years into the marriage.
In 1891 Albert Ernest was staying, not with his wife, but with Phillip Hinchley Hart, the son of Philip and Elizabeth Hart from thirty years earlier. He was recorded as married, age 32 and a Tramway Conductor. Not an occupation that would be in high demand in the sleepy hollow of Ixworth where Elizabeth A Drake and their three children were living. It seems inappropriate to comment but it does read rather oddly. He could of course be working in London and forwarding money to his wife in Ixworth. The census record was after all a single night in ten years.
Unfortunately, Ernest Drake didn't live to fill out another census form.
On 26 September 1898, Nathaniel Randell, District Registrar, undertook the onerous task of completing the documentation relating to the death of his son-in-law/stepson, Ernest Drake. The record show that Ernest died in the presence of his wife Elizabeth Ann Drake at their home in High Street, Ixworth. Ernest, aged only 39 years was a Grocer and Draper. He passed away 17 September 1898, a victim of tuberculosis.
Three years later, widow, Elizabeth Ann Drake and her three children were recorded living appropriately in Cemetery Road, Bury St Edmunds.
|
