Ellen RANDELL (Gambling) 1866
Frustrated at not being able to find any of Frederick and Fanny Randell’s children in the birth register, I searched for anybody of the right age and place of birth called either Mary, Jane, Frank or Ellen. To my surprise I found Mary Jane Randell Gambling, Frank Randell Gambling and Ellen Randell Gambling.
Ellen, who was born at the very beginning of 1866 in North Walsham, is the only available option to be Frederick and Fanny’s child and her surname was simply a legacy from Frederick.
In 1871 the Randell household was made up of parents, Frederick and Fanny Valentine and three children. Ellen was the middle child, sandwiched between, her older sister Mary Jane, and her younger brother Frank. No reference to Gambling as a surname was ever made in any census.
By 1881 Ellen Randell was age 15, and a border at Miss Caroline Smith Girls School in Cromer. The students were all aged 12 to 16 years and obviously girls.
Ellen's next appearance in the records was as a bride. She married Farmer, Edward John Howes in October 1888. Significantly Edward's sister, Emily, followed suit and married Ellen's younger brother, Frank, three years later.
In 1891, the couple were living in Mundelsey Road, North Walsham, with their first child, Geoffrey Randell Howes. Also in the house was Edward’s sister Louisa and naturally, the obligatory three female housemaids.
Sadly ten years later the fundamental nature of their lives had profoundly changed. Ellen Howes born 1866, died in the winter of 1897. She was age 31 and left behind a husband and four small children. Furthermore, a Mildred Valentine Howes enjoyed a brief life of two years. She was a fifth child born around the time of Ellen's death.
Edward John Howes remarried before the 1901 census. He took Edith Kitton as his bride at a ceremony in Kensington in the late summer of 1899.
Edith was both the daughter of Mary Kitton and the niece of Fanny Valentine, because Mary and Fanny were sisters, originally called Spence.
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Edward John HOWES 1859
Edward John Howes was the son of John and Caroline Howes who ran Hall Farm in Coltishall, Norfolk. Hall Farm was a substantial operation being 311 acres and employing seven men and three boys. The 1851 survey of farms showed 65 percent of English farms were less than 100 acres giving some perspective to the size of Hall Farm. The household employed an additional three teenage girls as either milkmaids or domestic staff.
Edward John Howes was born in Ingram in 1859. His sister Emily was also born there, whilst his father John was born in Happisburg, on the Norfolk coast. His mother Caroline had at some point moved up from Bramfield, Suffolk, where she was born in 1825.
Edward John Howes married Ellen Randell around October 1888 and they lived together at his farm in Mundelsey Road, North Walsham. Tragically in 1897 she died and Edward subsequently remarried Edith Kitton in 1899. Edith Kitton was the cousin of Ellen Randell as their mothers were the sisters, Mary and Fanny Spence.
Edward's connection to the Randell family would remain intact as his sister, Emily, married Frank Randell and produced several children of her own to add to the four descendants he could take into the new century.
The marriage of Edith Kitton and Edward John Howes produce two more children, Edith Mary born 1903 and Edward John Howes born two years later. Of all the children born in either marriage of Edward Howes, only Olive Emily and Edward John Jnr were to marry. Geoffrey was killed in 1917 during the Great War in Gaza, and Ellen May was engaged but lost her fiance in the same war and never married. Janet Howard became Hospital Matron but never married.
Ellen and Edward had the following children:
Geoffrey Randell HOWES 1889 North Walsham, Norfolk
Ellen May HOWES, 1891 North Walsham, Norfolk
Janet Howard HOWES 1892 North Walsham, Norfolk
Olive Emily HOWES 1894 North Walsham, Norfolk
Mildred Valentine HOWES 1896 North Walsham, Norfolk
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