Thomas and Mary Ann Giles

 Like many Charterhouse residents, Thomas Giles was not born in Hull.  He was baptised in Camblesforth near Drax on 28 May 1820.  His father died when he was 9 and his mother remarried; by 1841 the family were living in Drax, where Thomas was described as a journeyman joiner.  That same year Thomas married his first wife, Anne Dean, on 27 Sept in Holy Trinity, Hull.  He was to spend the rest of his life in the city.  At around this time he started a business of "joiners, carpenters and builders" called Giles & Brown with a partner called James Brown.  The partnership didn't last long.  It was dissolved on 16 February 1855, and Thomas took on all its debts and assets.  In his hands the business prospered.  

Perhaps because of his experience, Thomas Giles got involved with the Hull Guardian Society.  These societies were taking over from the earlier Trade Protection Societies which were formed by local business owners to deal with creditors who failed to pay their debts.  We have seen many times in the stories of Charterhouse residents who had been in and out of bankruptcy that businesses failed with great regularity.  An auction of stock and assets would be arranged to pay off the debts, and the business owner might be imprisoned for a while until he could raise enough money.  Not long after, he would start up the business again.  Some of this was due to a banking system that wasn't geared to overdrafts and loans for a business with temporary problems.  Some of it was down to bad debts and not being able to afford to pursue the debtor through the courts.  The Guardian Societies enabled business people to club together to pursue the debts and perhaps to blacklist persistent bad payers.  On 28 Feb 1857 Thomas was nominated and elected along with many others to be a member of the Hull Guardian Society – to protect trade in the city. The event was held at George’s Inn, 66 Whitefriargate, with the society based on Trinity House Lane.  

Thomas Giles' wife Anne died in October 1859, leaving him with 6 children.  A little over 7 months later he married Mary Ann Gibson at All Saints, Sculcoates.  The family lived at 11 Grimston St, a building which still exists and is now listed.  (left).  Thomas ran his business from 12 Worship St.  

It wasn't all plain sailing.   In 1862 Thomas appeared at Hull Police Court charged with breaching the Builders Act.  One charge was that he had built a property on Park St with walls only 4.5 inches thick, when the law said they had to be 9".  He was given 14 days to rectify this, with increasing financial penalties after that.  It didn't do him any harm.  In 1873 and 1876  he was the President of the Hull Subscription Mill Society.  This had its origins in co-operatives attempting to bring down the high cost of good quality flour.  The Hull society was founded in 1800 and continued until late in the century.  

Giles was also Honorary Secretary of the Hull Mechanics' Institute, founded in 1825.  These institutes brought education, largely in evening classes, to working men and were a valuable part of the movement towards giving greater opportunities to the working-class and broadening their horizons.  They had their less earnest side; in Thomas Giles' time there were also theatrical performances.

With all this success, and no evidence of bankruptcy, it seems odd that Thomas and Mary Ann should seek to end their days in one room at the Charterhouse.  But they were admitted on 30 October 1884.  Our register is, as so often, confusing.  Mary Ann is not registered until July 1889.  Thomas had died in March 1886.  It was at that point that we would expect a widow either to be evicted (so we would have no trace of her) or to be awarded the room, or another vacant room, in her own right.  The more than 3 year gap seems excessive.  Yet it is unlikely that Mary Ann was evicted in 1886 and given a room 3 years later.

Mary Ann had her own moment of fame to come.  In 1899 she was the subject of a lengthy article in the Hull Daily Mail when the story emerged that she stood to inherit a fortune from a long-lost uncle, William Gibson, who had died many years before in Calcutta.  Years had been spent looking for his heirs, and it seemed that Mary Ann was one of them.  She and four other heirs, one of them Thomas and Mary Ann's son John, stood to inherit over a million pounds.  We hear no more about it; there is no follow-up in the press.  It seems improbable that she and her son actually got any money, and she died 4 years later.  Our register has her date of death, correctly, as 26 April 1903, but the death notice in the paper says she died at 62 Prince's Rd, her son's address.  Perhaps she had been moved there in her last days to be cared for.

Thomas and Mary Ann Giles were in some ways not a typical Charterhouse couple, but they show how diverse and interesting are the people behind the names in the register.

(Thanks to Joanne Bone, a descendant of the Giles, for much of the research into the couple.)