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Elusive Elizabeth?

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  • Elusive Elizabeth?

    Where is elusive Elizabeth?

    A 3x great grandmother Elizabeth Crickmer(Crickmere) is difficult to find in official records and I’ve run out of ideas. This particular brickwall has been bugging me for several years so any help would be appreciated.

    A baptism for Eliza, d/o Robert and Sarah Crickmere (late Petit) at Holy Trinity, Bungay on 4 November, 1800 is possibly her.

    Marriage: Thomas Charles Druce of Bury St Edmunds and Elizabeth Crickmer of St James, Bungay at St James , Bury St Edmunds. Suffolk – Sudbury Marriage Licences.
    I think Elizabeth’s parish is wrongly listed in this entry.

    The next official entries are for the baptisms of children of Thomas and Elizabeth Druce at St James Bury St Edmunds: Charles 1818, George 1819, Frances, 1822 and my ancestor William Crickmore Druce born October 1827, baptised April 14 1828.

    From there Elizabeth “disappears”.
    I’ve been unable to find Thomas and Elizabeth Druce and family on the 1841 census – unless the name has been mistranscibed to something totally different. I don’t know where they were living in 1841 but it’s possible that Thomas who began as a draper’s assistant at Bury had moved to London and was already involved in his manchester/carpet/ furniture business at the Baker Street Bazaar. I do know that Charles, George and William all emigrated to Australia at different periods.

    In 1851 Thomas Druce was married to second wife Annie by whom he already had 3 children - the eldest Herbert, born 1846. Newspaper reports many years later claim that Elizabeth was still alive when the first children of Annie and Thomas were born.
    If she was still alive then where was she? Did wives change their names if their husbands deserted them? Was she admitted to an asylum?
    I assume TC’s marriage to Annie came after Elizabeth died. There are several entries for deaths of Elizabeth Druce in FreeBMD during the 1840s but I don’t know whether she had moved to London or had stayed / been left in Bury St Edmunds.

    The information about Tc's family comes from newspaper reports of evidence given in a series of long running law suits that occurred over 40 years after his death in December 1864. The story behind the law suits is too long and involved to go into here except to say that descendants of Thomas’s second family claimed that he was in fact the 5th Duke of Portland living a double life as a businessman.

    The University of Nottingham has a huge collection of all the papers compiled and produced during the Druce – Portland cases and I suspect there would be more information about Elizabeth and Thomas contained in those files. Unfortunately these are not available on line.

  • #2
    Hi Kate,
    I haven't found anything of real use, but keep coming back to this in the 1851 census. It just seems a little too much of a coincidence, but that is probably all it is.

    - Ancestry.co.uk

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    • #3
      Hi Lyn,
      I no longer have access to Ancestry.
      If that's the 1851 entry the name Druce pops up as Bruce on the record that I saw and shows TC with Annie and 3 children. They were living at Richmond then.

      Comment


      • #4
        Sorry Kate....
        No it is an Elizabeth Drews who has a 10yo son named John Crickmore. There is a John Crickmer birth registered at Ipswich, Jun Qtr 1841. 12 / 335
        If you PM your email addy, I will send you the image.

        Have to go for a while, but will get back as soon as I can.

        Comment


        • #5
          No it is an Elizabeth Drews who has a 10yo son named John Crickmore.
          The son is actually a grandson according to the census.

          In 1841 Stephen and Elizabeth Drew (the 1851 couple) are living nextdoor to John and Susan Crickmore (both aged 20) who have a son John aged 1. I wonder if this is the same child as is shown with Stephen and Elizabeth in 1841?

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          • #6
            Lyn and Merry,

            Thanks to you both for looking but that's not the family I'm after.
            The info I have re the Druce children of Elizabeth and Thomas is from Bury St Edmunds parish records and William was their youngest born 1827. From what I've seen Crickmer and its variations was not an uncommon name in parts of Suffolk.

            My problem is finding anything about Elizabeth after 1827 but it appears she was still alive until the 1840s. I'm beginning to think she's 'lost' for ever.

            Comment


            • #7
              There is a piece on the case at The History Files website; and a number of files can be found at The National Archives Kew.

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