Just ordinary people

 Most of the people who ended their days in the Charterhouse will remain unknown or be just names on a list.  Public records may tell us the bare facts, but even then the most common names offer no clues to enable us to pin down those facts.  Online searches sometimes reveal more.  Ordinary people had extraordinary things happen to them.  I have tended in this blog to pick those people out simply because they are interesting.  But those who left no traces, the unremarkable lives, would be just as interesting if we knew more.  Here are some of them.

William and Maria Abba (who come first alphabetically in our database) celebrated their golden wedding anniversary in the Charterhouse in October 1902.  

This snippet in the Hull Daily Mail was the only time they got their names in the papers.  William was born in Scarborough in 1823 but soon came to Hull to pursue a career as a shipwright.  He married Maria Bradley in 1847 and by 1861 the couple were living in Grimsby Lane with their 3 children.  Their last child, Gertrude, was born in 1865.  Like many families they moved house quite often.  By 1871 they were on Holderness Rd and William had taken on an additional job as a "fancy goods dealer".  It's possible that this was not a side-line for him but a job for Maria, an attempt to bring in some money in lean spells for William's work as a shipwright. 

By 1881 they had moved to Grotto Square off Mason St and were to remain there until they were admitted to the Charterhouse early in 1897.  They died within a year of each other, Maria in 1904 and William in 1905.

Just ordinary lives, perhaps.  But who knows what dramas, what joys and tragedies, are hidden behind those bare facts.

John Cana was another ordinary man,  He was born in Woodbridge, Suffolk, in 1834.  By the age of 17 he had moved to Staines and was working as a printer's apprentice and living with the printer's family.  He was to follow the printing trade for the rest of his life.  In 1857 he married Betsey Stropher back in Suffolk, and then the couple moved to London, co-incidentally living in Charterhouse Lane there.  He was described on the 1861 census as a printer compositor.  Soon after that the couple came to Hull.  But John's printing business ran into trouble and he went bankrupt in 1869.  It was a common experience for self-employed and small businessmen.  The couple can't be found on the 1871 census but they were in Hull when Betsey died in 1872.  John wasted no time in marrying again, to Elinor Banks who was 20 years his junior.  By 1881 the family were living in Neptune St and John was working as a printer's overseer.  It was safer to work for someone else than to set up on your own.  In 1891 they were still there, with 5 daughters with the surname Banks (Elinor's children by a previous marriage, presumably) and Ada Banks who is "sister-in-law" to John.  It's obviously complicated!  By 1901 they were living in St James St.  (pictured)

John stayed in the printing work as long as he could and. at the age of 72, he was admitted to the Charterhouse in May 1906.  Elinor did not accompany him.  She would have been too young for admission.  But it's possible that the couple had separated before then.  John Cana was a Charterhouse resident for ten years before his death.  Just another ordinary life?

The only claim to fame of William Henry Pepper was that at the age of 18 he was in trouble with the law.  He'd found a way of cheating the blind newspaper on Whitefriargate bridge, and did it several times before he was caught.  He handed over what he said was a sixpenny piece for a penny paper, and the vendor gave him 5d change.  Only later did the vendor discover that Pepper had given him a worthless token of the right size instead of a coin.  So in 1881 Pepper, described as a cloth dealer's labourer, was sentenced to 3 months in Hedon Rd jail followed by 12 months of police supervision - the precursor to probation.  He went straight after that (or was never again caught).  In 1889 he married Annie Manchester and 2 years later he was a Master Grocer at 15 Florence Ave, Queen St.  By 1911 he was a hotel porter, the grocery business presumably not having worked out.  We next pick them up on the 1939 electoral register in the Charterhouse, so the years in between are a blank.  Annie died in 1946 but I don't know when William died.  An ordinary couple with a bit of youthful law-breaking.

Joseph Acum spent much of his life as a grocer and tea dealer in Hull; but he was born and grew up in Sleaford, where he married Susannah Clay in 1821.  By 1851 they were living in New George Street, close by the Charterhouse.  Two years later Joseph was giving evidence to an enquiry into election bribery when Henry Clay had won the Hull seat.  

Joseph said he had been promised 15s. for voting for Clay, and when the money didn't materialise he pointed out that he had done a lot of work for the election.  He never received the money.  (Joseph wasn't the only Charterhouse resident to give evidence to the enquiry.)

In 1861 the couple were still in New George Street (picture below)

But then there is a puzzle.  Joseph was admitted to the Charterhouse in July 1867, without Susannah.  He was 71.  He's here in 1871.  Susannah is living in Spencer St with her daughter and family.  She gives her status as married and her occupation as "agent's wife".  In 1881 we find Joseph in Spencer St with Susannah, as head of the family, though there is no break in his recorded residence at the Charterhouse.  Susannah died 2 months after the census.  Perhaps Joseph had returned to her temporarily  because she was very ill.  He died himself in February 1885, aged 89.  What we can discover about Joseph Acum's life leaves a lot of questions.

There is clearly no such thing as an ordinary person.