Any judgement on a single parent, or a child born out of wedlock seems old-fashioned today, in fact it’s even rude to enquire into a person’s marital status. However, not that long ago, giving birth to a child out of wedlock or being that child, was scandalous. The recent Royal Commission into institutional abuse here and similar overseas, shows that many of these families were separated, and life was often particularly hard for the children put into in orphanages. Similarly, no one wants to think of their ancestors as victims – or perpetrators – of some past “me too” moment if there was a story beyond just “no marriage.”
I already knew of a few children born out of wedlock in my family’s past (Olive Grace Stonehouse, William Stonehouse and the children of Eliza Stonehouse), but I have begun to find more.
Sometimes these stories are recorded as family gossip, and there are no records of the births or the children at all.
Sometimes there seems to have been very little secrecy, and the child has been welcomed into their mother’s home and raised among siblings.
Sometimes it was perhaps so secretive and scandalous that the child’s existence is known only by the records, with no stories or memories to pass on.
Sometimes it might be a mistake in something, or another misunderstanding and what looks slightly scandalous from the 21stC, is simply the result of a transcription error.
Mabel Bennetts, UK, c1905
Mabel was born in Gloucestershire c1905. By the time she was 6 she was living in Wales as the adopted daughter of William Nelmes and his wife Catherine nee Trezise (Catherine was the daughter of William c1822, who had many siblings who went to Australia). William and Catherine had had one biological child, Willie, but he had died when only 21, in 1899.
A family story on Ancestry tells us that Mabel was the daughter of Charles and “the housekeeper,” Mrs Bennetts.
Mrs Bennetts was probably Annie Bennetts nee Semmens. I can’t see that she was a housekeeper at any time, for the Nelmes’ or anyone else. Annie was, however, from St Just, where Catherine was born, and knew Catherine and Charles well enough that during the 1901 census she was a guest with them in Wales.
Annie was a generation younger than the Nelmes,’ being 28 in 1901 when the Nelmes’ were in their forties. She had married John Bennetts in Cornwall 1893 and given birth to their first daughter ten months later. Annie then had a child with John rather consistently, every few years, other than a break between 1897 and 1908, the period in which Mabel was born, so there is possibility that yes she is Mabel’s mother.
Annie certainly didn’t live fulltime with the Nelmes in Wales. She is also recorded in the 1901 census in her hometown of St Just, as living with her own husband and their children.
Mabel was born in Charles’ hometown in Gloucestershire. Charles and Catherine moved a lot and I don’t think that they were in Gloucestershire when Mabel was born.
I can’t find any record of Mabel’s birth or anything of her life after the 1911 census – either as Mabel Bennetts or Mabel Nelmes.
If her biological identity was supposed to be a secret, then it can’t have been a very well kept one. Did the Mabel know Charles was her biological father? Did others, or was she simply passed off being an adopted child?
From Ancestry for Catherine Trezise:
We have been told that Charles was married to Catherine (Trezise). Charles and Catherine had a son William Wallace Nelmes. Sadly William Wallace died at the age of 21. Catherine later returned to Cornwall and Charles (at some point) had an affair with the housekeeper Mrs Bennetts and had a daughter by her. On the 1911 census, Charles is shown living with Catherine and an adopted daughter.
Ethel May Rawlings, 12 July1898, Adelaide.
In 1898, Flora Rawlings gave birth in Adelaide. Flora had just turned 18, and no father was listed on the birth certificate. Her family were hundreds of kilometres away in Broken Hill.
Sadly, Ethel May died when just a few months old.
I’d love to see her death certificate. Was baby Ethel living with her mother? If so, who was supporting them? Was, tragically, the death something related to neglect or poverty, similar to the child of Eliza Stonehouse.
Remaining in Adelaide, Flora went on to marry William Usher six years later, in 1904, and the couple had three children.
Ethel doesn’t appear on any trees on Ancestry, so originally I left her off, too. I spent some time wondering whether to add to her. However, she was born over 120 years ago, and to not include her is to perpetuate the idea that there’s shame in her very existence.
(The dates for Ethel’s birth and that of Flora’s step-brother Charlie are such that Flora is not Charlie’s biological mother).
The First Ball I Took Your Mother To 