Redfern family – rowleyregislosthamlets.co.uk

The family of Joseph and Ann Maria Redfern, Part 2

Later Redferns after 1851

Following on from my last piece about the older children of this couple, this piece looks at the children born after the 1941 Census.

By 1851, the family was still on Turner’s Hill, Joseph still a labourer but now with his age given as 48 and his place of birth as Rowley Regis as were the whole family. Maria was now 50, Eliza 20, Joseph 18, William 16 both boys working as labourers; Ann at 13 was still a scholar. In the interim between the censuses, Solomon, aged 9, John aged 7 and Samuel aged 5 had all been born. All were described as scholars.

Incidentally, when I looked at later Censuses, I noticed that Joseph’s widow Maria, later described herself as the widow of a Highways Labourer and in 1871, he described himself as a Furnace Labourer, although he and Maria had a boarder who was a Highways Labourer so perhaps he moved from one job to the other. Certainly other Redferns were Furnace Labourers, gruelling hot work for much of the year, I suspect. Their family has grown in ten years.

In 1851 Eliza is still living at home, now aged 20, Joseph aged 18, William, aged 16 and Ann, aged 13, the two boys were working as labourers and Ann and the younger children were Scholars. But Elizabeth, like her mother, had no occupation shown. Also Solomon, aged 9, John, aged 7 and Samuel aged 5 had come along. The household is almost next to Turner’s Hill Farm so they were pretty high up on the hill.

Henry Redfern

I also noted that there was another Redfern in the later censuses, living with Joseph and Ann Maria and later with his own wife and family. This was Henry Redfern who was born in 1854, the illegitimate son of Eliza Redfern. Henry was baptised at St Giles on 22 Mar 1854 as the son of Eliza Redfern of Turners Hill with no father named and appears to have been raised by his Redfern grandparents as he was with them in the 1861 and 1871 censuses, and after his mother had married Daniel Hughes in 1859 and moved to Dudley.

Family trees on Ancestry state that on his marriage certificate in 1875 (when Henry married his cousin Elizabeth Redfern), his father’s name was given as Luke Lashford. I can find only one reference to this name in the locality and this was in 1851 when a Luke Lashford, born in Birmingham, was living and working as a butcher for Joseph Bowater at the Bulls Head in Tippity Green – the dates fit, so presumably this is Henry’s father. After this census Luke Lashford disappears without trace. I cannot find a death for him, nor any other record of him later, it does look as though he may have ‘done a runner’! Fortunately, the Redferns were obviously a very supportive family for Eliza.

Henry worked for most of his life in the stone quarries and he and Elizabeth lived on Turners Hill all their lives, it appears from censuses, and had nine children. Their children were Mary A (1874), Henry (1875), Eliza (1878-1878), Joseph (1879), Martha (1882), Louisa (1885), Walter (1889), Sarah Jane (1891) and Ernest (1895) – another nine great-grandchildren for Joseph and Ann Maria.

It seems likely to me that, since Henry worked in the quarry for at least forty years, he may appear on some of the numerous photographs of quarry workers which are in various books and online. Alas, I have no way of identifying him if so but perhaps some members of the Redfern family might recognise a family likeness. Do tell if you can!

Younger children of Joseph and Ann Maria Redfern

Solomon Redfern 1841-1928

Solomon stayed in the hamlets all of his life, working in the quarry. He married Mary Ann Mole of the Club Buildings, Hawes Lane, on 8 Feb 1863 at St Giles when he was 21 and she was 22. They initially lived in Hawes Lane, possibly at the Club Buildings but by 1881 they were back in Perrys Lake where they stayed for the rest of their lives. In the 1901 Census, the address is given as Hailstone Quarry, following on from Perrys Lake in the list so perhaps they were further up the hill, actually within the quarry. Family members may be able to tell me this.

Solomon’s children:

Solomon and Mary Ann had six children that I know of. These were William (1863-1863), Ann (1864-1948), Alfred (1866-1940), Edward (1868-1871), William (1872-1956) and Samuel (1876-?).

Of those children, the first William died aged 15 weeks, sadly not unusual in those days.

Ann (1864-1948) married Eli Eades at Reddal Hill church on 19 Dec 1891. They had three children, Annie in 1893, William G in 1895 and Jesse in 1901. Eli Eades was a draper and died in 1023. William appears to have followed him into this trade and they may have had a shop in Long Lane, somewhere in the area of Shell Corner. Ann lived on until 1948.

Alfred (1886-1940) stayed in Perrys Lake in Rowley, marrying Kate or Catherine Whithall, also of Perrys Lake on 25 Dec 1887 at St Lukes, Cradley Heath. He appears to have worked at the quarry for his whole life and they lived at 12 Perrys Lake but had no children. He died in 1940 and Catherine died in 1954.

Edward (1868-1871) had died at the age of three and was buried on 12 Nov 1871 at St Giles, Rowley Regis.

William moved to Threlkeld in Cumberland to work in the quarry there, at some point between 1891 when the census shows that he was still in Perry’s Lake and 1900 when he married Sarah Ann Airey in Threlkeld. They had five children – Ernest in 1901, Edith in 1902, Alfred in 1903, Mildred in 1907 and Annie in 1909. By 1939, William and Sarah had moved to Langcliffe, Craven where William still gave his occupation as a Limestone quarryman. Their son Alfred lived next door but one with his family, he was also a quarryman. William died in 1956 and Sarah in 1957, they are buried together in Langcliffe, Craven District, North Yorkshire, England.

I could at first find no trace of Solomon’s youngest child Samuel after 1901 when he was still living at home. None of the online family trees had any further information on him either. He did not appear to have died between 1901 and 1939 in the UK, he did not die in the First World War, I could not find him in the 1911 or 1921 Censuses . Did he start using another name? Did he emigrate?

But I think I have now found him. The 1939 Register, (which was not a census but a listing of the whole population taken by the Government just before the Second World War and which was to be the basis of rationing and later used by the NHS, ) is a useful source as it shows dates of birth, addresses, implied family groups, occupations but not places of birth. Many newer entries are redacted, blacked out for 100 years from their date of birth because those people are or are assumed to be still alive, although people who have died can be opened up. But I could search the Register for the whole country for a Samuel Redfern born in 1876. There were six Samuel Redferns in the whole of England and Wales in 1939 who had been born between 1875 and 1877. Of these most were in Derbyshire or Cumberland. But one was in the Cockermouth area, where, as I showed in a previous post, quite a number of Rowley quarry workers had settled, recruited by the quarries there for their sett making skills. Those had included William Redfern, Samuel’s brother who had settled in the Threlkeld area.

It appears that Samuel had followed his older brother up to Cumberland, he had married in the Cockermouth area in 1908 to Mary Elizabeth Charters and they had two children William Lawrence in 1909 and Mary Frances in 1911. In 1939 Samuel was living in Rakefoot, Embleton, Northumbria with his wife and daughter, his occupation was given as a Roadstone Quarry Worker – the granite connection again! Using this information I was then able to find the family in the 1911 Census in Wythop Mill Nr Cockermouth and in Tile Kiln Cottage, Arlecdon, Cumberland in the 1921 Census, Samuel always working in quarries.

John Redfern 1844-1929

John was living at 26 Rowley Village in 1911, with his two daughters Ann Maria 1871- and Phoebe 1880. He had married Leah Tromans on 24 December 1865 at Dudley St Thomas and states in the 1911 Census that they had had 8 children of whom only four were still alive in 1911. I can only find the birth registrations for six children between their marriage in 1865 and 1890, the last child I can find was John, born in 1883. The first two children Martha (1866-1866) and Sarah Ann (1868-1868) had both died in their first months and were buried in St Giles. It is possible that there were another two stillbirths which would not be registered but which would still be counted by the family as their children.

Some of the trees on Ancestry have a photograph of a farm called Upper House Farm, Wolferlow in Herefordshire, attached to the information about this John, stating that John farmed there with his son John before returning to Ockbrook, Derby and Stanley, Derbyshire where the family had originated from, a Moravian settlement , where John’s grandfather German Redfern had lived.

This may be possible and may come from family information, since the trees are those of Redferns. However, this may not have been over a prolonged time period as both John and his son John are in the Rowley and Blackheath area for all of the censuses that I have been able to find and all of their children were born in the area. John the older died in Rowley Regis in 1948. Neither of them appears to have any farming experience from their listed occupations which does not necessarily preclude a period of farming, family members may be able to explain how this came about. There were certainly Redferns farming in Wimborne, Dorset but I have not looked at the Derby Redferns in any detail. His father was given as John Redfern, a labourer and hers as Joseph Stokes, deceased, also a labourer. The witnesses were Joseph Stokes and Jane Hadley.

Leah Redfern died in 1905 and was buried on 17 Aug 1905 at St Giles, aged 58. John Redfern , of 26 Rowley Village, where he had lived with his family for many years, died in 1929, aged 85 and was buried at St Giles on 4 Mar 1929.

John’s children

John and Leah’s known surviving children were Ann Maria born 1871, Joseph born 1875, Phoebe born 1880 and John born 1882.

Ann Maria 1871-1955, Phoebe 1880-1955

Neither Ann Maria or Phoebe married and they lived in Rowley Village with their father until his death in 1929, after which they appear to have continued to live together in the same house. Online family trees record that Phoebe died on 9 February 1955 aged 75 and Ann Maria died only a few days later on the 17^th, aged 84. Whereas Ann Maria seems to have taken care of domestic life for the family, Phoebe worked, in 1901 as a Nail Bag Maker, in 1911 as a ‘counter of nuts and bolts’ in Rowley, in 1921 as a ‘weigher of nuts and bolts’ at T W Lenches in Ross, and in 1939 as a ‘checker of nuts and bolts’ so it appears likely that she worked at Lenches all her life.

Joseph Redfern 1875-1943

Joseph married Eliza Stokes at St Paul’s Church, Blackheath on 22 Apr 1895. He was 21, a labourer and gave his abode as 74 Halesowen Street while Eliza was also 21 and gave hers as 97 Halesowen Street. They had at least seven children and in 1911 were living at 91 Rowley Village. He was then working as a Brick Kiln Labourer. Their children were Joseph (1896), Ethel (1899), Doris (1902), May (1905), Leonard (1908) and Lily (1910) and Annie (1912). In 1901, the family were living in Rowley Village and Joseph was working as a labourer at the Cement Works; in 1911 they were at 91 Rowley Village, and Joseph was working as a Brick Kiln Burner; in 1921, still living at 91, Rowley Village, Joseph was working as a Yard Labourer at T W Lenches. The 1939 Register shows Joseph living at 6 Limes Avenue, Blackheath and working as a Works Watchman. With him is his daughter Ethel with her husband Thomas Astley, and Joseph’s youngest daughter Annie.

Although Joseph is noted as a Widower in the 1939 Register, Eliza appears still to be alive and she is listed in the 1939 Register in the Staffordshire Mental Hospital near Stafford, she lived until 1957 by which time she was back in Rowley Regis. There may have been an assumption that Joseph was a widower on the part of the person completing the 1939 Register as Joseph was living alone in Limes Avenue. Joseph died in December 1943 and was buried on 18 Dec 1943 at St Giles, Eliza in 1957.

John Redfern 1882-1948

John married Annie Crumpton in about 1906, in the Stourbridge Registration District. They went on to have at least nine children – Leah – 1906-1906, Percy in 1907, Lily in 1910, Phoebe in 1913, John in 1915, Arthur James in 1919, Harry in 1922, Hilda in 1924 and Stanley in 1928. The family lived in various roads in Blackheath and John was at times a labourer but in 1921, a storekeeper at British Thompson Houston. In 1939, the family were living in Grange Road and John was listed as a general labourer and also as an Air Raid Warden. Annie died in 1947 and John died in 1948.

So all of John and Annie’s children stayed in the Rowley and Blackheath area for the rest of their lives.

Samuel Redfern

Samuel Redfern 1845-1911

Samuel was the youngest child of Joseph and Ann Maria and by 1861, at 15 years of age he was already a labourer, still living at home with his parents on Turners Hill. In 1871 he was again still living at home and both Samuel and his father were described as Furnace Labourers. In 1891, Samuel appears to have been a patient in the North Lonsdale Hospital, Barrow in Furness where he was described as a ‘Stoker at the Steelworks’. Yet another instance of Rowley men moving up to the North for work, in this case in the steel industry, rather than quarries. But he did, after all, come from a family where many of the men were furnace workers.

After that, records become sparse for Samuel. In 1901 he is still in Barrow in Furness living with his wife Sarah, formerly Hartley and a son named in the census as Henry H Redfern, Samuel’s occupation given as a Steelworks labourer. Samuel and Sarah had been married in Barrow in Furness in 1896. But there is no birth registration for a Henry Redfern in this area in 1882, I suspect that Henry was actually, as so often in those days, put down as Redfern because that was the name of the head of the household and he was actually Henry Hartley, that Sarah was a widow at the time of her marriage to Samuel and Henry was one of three sons of that previous marriage. And there is a Birth Registration for a Henry Hartley in Barrow in Furness in 1882 and a Henry Hartley appears in the 1911 Census in Barrow in Furness, too. So I do not think Henry was Samuel’s son.

Samuel appears to have died in Barrow in Furness in the early months of 1911. His widow Sarah remarried in 1912.

Redfern Overview

Any errors in this research are all my own, corrections welcome. I have looked at Redfern Trees online and sometimes used those to guide me to additional information (I have said so where I have done this) but generally I have only included information where I can confirm information and sources.

So although I have not gone any further back from Joseph and Ann Maria in that first 1841 census, in two generations they had between them 11 children and at least 54 grandchildren in the Rowley area or within a few miles, shown on this screenshot here (of the Redfern part of my own family tree – Joseph is the paternal grandfather of the husband of my 1st cousin 3x removed, so not exactly closely related!).

The screenshot is, I’m afraid, much too small for you to read the details but Joseph and Ann maria are at the top just under those little green symbols. And I couldn’t even get all of the grandchildren on the screen, too many of them, the tree is too wide but it gives an idea of how big their family was! And the majority of them stayed in the Rowley and Blackheath area, although a few went North, no wonder there are still many Redferns in the area today.

There are several Redfern family trees on Ancestry and the Redfern Family website https://redfernsworldwide.com/ and One Name Study which I mentioned in my last article so plenty of opportunities for co-operative researching!

More family studies from the Lost Hamlets coming in due course!

The Redfern Family in the Lost Hamlets 1

The 1841 Census for the Lost Hamlets has one family of Redferns – Joseph Redfern was living on Turners Hill, a labourer, with his age given as 35. His wife Maria (sometimes Ann Maria), nee Priest, has her age as 40. Joseph and Maria appear to have been married at Tipton on 16 Jul 1827. Maria sometimes used Ann Maria and sometimes Maria, in records throughout her life. Their children Sarah aged 12, Eliza aged 10, Joseph aged 8, William, aged 6 and Ann, aged 4 completed the family, all of the children were born in Rowley Regis.

In later censuses, Joseph gave his age as 48 in 1851, giving a birth year of about 1803. I can find no baptism for a Joseph Redfern in the area in that year, so it is possible that he was born elsewhere, though he consistently says in censuses that he was born in Rowley Regis. Another possibility is that he was baptised in a non-conformist chapel. Certainly, the Priest family into which he married had very strong connections with the Presbyterian Chapel in Cradley Heath which was also in the parish of Rowley Regis.

Maria or Ann Maria gives her age in 1851 as 50 which gives her birth year of 1801. The only baptism I can find for this period of a likely Ann Maria is Maria, the daughter of Cornelius and Mary Priest of Bournbrook , Cradley Heath who was baptised at St Giles, Rowley Regis on 4 Oct 1801. But this is by no means certain, there may be another baptism somewhere that I have simply not been able to find.

The fact that Joseph and Maria were married in Tipton perhaps argues that she was not connected to the Cradley Heath Priests but I cannot find another Maria or Ann Maria baptised in the Tipton area either. And since Maria had had a baby out of wedlock, it seems possible that her family sent her to stay with relatives in Rowley to hide the shame for the family (possibly their view, not mine!). And it seems that David Priest , living with his family in Gadds Green in 1841 was born in Cradley Heath and directly related to the Priest families there so they would have been known to each other and were probably related.

At various points Joseph gives his occupation as a labourer or a furnace man or a furnace labourer. This seems to have been a common occupation for the Redferns as at least two of his sons were also furnace labourers. In 1856, at his son Joseph’s marriage his occupation was given as a Blast Furnace man. One census entry notes that he is a furnace labourer in a coal mine (fires were kept burning at the bottom of shafts to pull air through the mines and reduce the build-up of explosive gases) but others were noted as Blast Furnace labourers, a very different job. I am unsure where the nearest blast furnaces were to Turner’s Hill, possibly at Tividale/Tipton where there were extensive iron works and at least three furnaces shown on the 1^st Edition OS Map though there were almost certainly others in the area including Brades where a furnace is also shown. If Joseph was working at the iron works in the Tividale/Tipton area, this may account for the marriage at Tipton church.

Ist Edition OS Map, copyright David & Charles, surveyed about 1830. Several furnaces and iron works are shown on this map including ones at Tipton and Dudley Port, also at Brades.

Ann Maria

The name Ann Maria is used frequently in the family from this point on, often, it appears, with the name Maria being used day to day. Almost all Joseph and Ann Maria’s children and many of their grandchildren named one of their daughters Ann Maria so they are liberally scattered around the family tree!

Are they on my family tree?

Yet again, having thought when I started this study that I had no connections with the Redferns, I now find that I have two, so far, as Cornelius Priest was already in my family tree! I suspect that the more I look in detail at the families in the Lost Hamlets, the more I shall find that my lines are married into them at some point, sometimes several points, perhaps a natural result of them living in such small communities with limited contact with other communities. So yes, they are on my tree!

Who was Thomas Priest?

Thomas Priest, aged 15 was also living with the Redfern family on Turners Hill. The 1841 Census does not show relationships within households. Thomas was baptised at Dudley St Thomas on 26 Mar 1826, the son of Ann Maria Priest and there is no name shown in the Register for the father so he was probably illegitimate. Joseph and Ann Maria were married in July 1827, fifteen months later so this was certainly not a hasty marriage shortly before or after Thomas’s birth. There are several family trees on Ancestry which suggest that this Thomas was the illegitimate son of Ann Maria and Joseph, born before they were married.

My expert consultant on such issues agreed with me however that, at this time, when parents of an illegitimate child subsequently married, that child usually then became known by the father’s name and is shown in sequence in censuses as the oldest child whereas step children tend to be listed after full children. Since Thomas is shown at the end of the household in 1841, and with the name Priest, not Redfern, and after Joseph and Ann Maria’s other younger children, I suspect that he was not Joseph Redfern’s child but a stepson. It was very common at that time for stepchildren to use their stepfather’s surname or to swap between the two names so the later use of the Redfern name is not conclusive. The only document I can find which lists Thomas as Priest is the 1861 Census when Thomas was living in between his stepfather and stepbrother. I suspect that the enumerator knew that Thomas had grown up in the Redfern household and perhaps thought of him as a Redfern so that the use here is an enumerator error. Certainly all of Thomas’s children were registered as Priest, not Redfern.

At his own marriage to Emma Moreton in 1850, at Dudley St Thomas, Thomas gave the name of his father as Joseph Priest, a Furnaceman, not Joseph Redfern – although he was also a Furnaceman!

There was at least one Joseph Priest in the area who is of about the right age and could have been this man but although there was one family of Priests at Finger i’ the hole in 1841 there is no Joseph listed there and other Priest families appeared to have been in Blackheath and especially in Cradley Heath (which is also where I theorise that Maria’s family were living). It is also possible that the priest asked ‘What is your father’s name and Thomas replied ‘Joseph’ and this was attached to Thomas’s surname of Priest so that gave Joseph Priest. Or Thomas may simply have invented a father’s name, rather than have that space empty, thus showing that he was illegitimate, something that genealogists find is not uncommon with illegitimate children.

A DNA test might prove the final answer to this, perhaps the current members of the Redfern family have done this and established the answer to their satisfaction!

Certainly in later years, Thomas remained in the hamlets, at one stage he and his family were living next door to other members of the Redfern family for several decades.

I shall do a separate post about the Priest family.

Where had the Redferns come from?

One of the crests associated with the Redfern family, courtesy of Andrew Redfern.

Wikipedia suggests that Redfern is an English surname of French Norman origin. It originally appeared as De Redeven.

The first Redfern mentioned in the St Giles’s Parish Registers is the baptism of Ann, the daughter of William and Sarah Redfern on 9^th December 1792, followed by John, their son on 20 May 1798. This John must have died, (although I cannot find a burial for him), as another John was baptised to William and Sarah on 11 Jul 1802.

In 1813,Elizabeth, daughter of William (a farmer) and Sarah Redfern of Piddocks Green, Rowley Regis was baptised on 5^th August, in June 1815 Edward, son of William and Sarah of Plants Green, farmer, was baptised . Plants Green was certainly in the Old Hill/Cradley Heath area but I do not know where Piddocks Green was, it may well have been the same place, place names were sometimes quite flexible.

On 19^th January 1817 Henry Smith Redfern, base born son of Mary Redfern of Turner’s Hill was baptised (there may just be a clue as to the identity of his father there, although I haven’t looked any further into that!).

On 15^th July 1821, William, son of John and Mary Redfern of Turners Hill, a nailer, was baptised, followed by sister Rebekah on 7 September 1823. On 25 September 1825 Joseph, son of John and Mary, now described as a labourer and of Lye Cross was baptised. On 9 Mar 1828 Mary Ann Redfern of Lye Cross, died, aged 28 of Fever.

On 4 December 1832 Esther Redfern of Mincing Lane, aged 30, died of diabetes.

On 7 Jul 1833 Elizabeth Redfern of Dudley Wood was buried, aged 27, having died of decline.

On 16 Oct 1839, John Redfern of Turners Hill, aged 9 months died of measles.

On 13 February 1848, Harriet, daughter of William (a miner) and Ann Redfern of Portway was baptised.

On 2 December 1849, William Redfern of Turners Hill was buried, aged 81, the cause of death being given as Old age.

So clearly there were Redferns in the area, including Turner’s Hill and Lye Cross as early as 1821.

Both Joseph and Ann Redfern give their place of birth consistently in all censuses as Rowley Regis. And yet, I cannot find baptism for a Joseph Redfern in Rowley or in the surrounding area.

At least some of Joseph and Ann Maria’s children were baptised at Dudley St Thomas, Joseph and Eliza both on 12 Aug 1832, with Joseph’s occupation given as a Furnaceman and their abode as Rowley Regis. William was baptised there on 2 Jul 1837 and Ann Maria was baptised the same day.

Also at St Thomas, John, son of John (another Furnaceman) and Mary Redfern of Portway, was baptised there on 18 Oct 1835.

So it appears that these Redferns moved between St Thomas at Dudley and St Giles at Rowley, which seems to be quite common for families living in this area. And there were Redferns scattered around both Rowley and the wider neighbourhood after about 1790.

To muddy the waters, Solomon (one of Joseph and Ann Maria’s later children, to be covered in a later post) appears to be a Redfern family name. There are Solomon Redferns in Stockport in Cheshire in 1866 and in Meltham near Huddersfield in 1852, though that name is spelled Redfearn. And in Denton, Lancashire in 1866. Although all of these Solomons were married to a Mary so it is possible that they are all the same person, moving around!

Online trees trace Joseph’s birth to Stanley in Derbyshire, but I have not investigated this possibility any further, since Joseph himself believed that he had been born in Rowley Regis and there were certainly Redferns in the area at that time.

So this is the Redferns in the Lost Hamlets in the 1841 Census. Since this is such a short piece, I will add some details about:

Joseph and Maria’s older children (those listed in the 1841 Census)

Sarah Redfern 1829-1885

The oldest daughter Sarah, who was aged 12 in 1841 was no longer in the household by 1851. In fact she was living at 84 Snow Hill, Birmingham where she was a servant in the household of Josiah Blackwell, who was a grocer. She was described as a House Servant but there were also three other Assistant Grocers living in so there would have been plenty to keep her busy. Snow Hill Station was, of course, the Birmingham Station familiar to those of us who used the train into Birmingham, that trains from Rowley and Blackheath later ran in to on the Great Western line but the station was not built until 1852 so it was not open when Sarah was working there. But a long row of shops remained long afterwards, running down the hill. Rowley Regis and Blackheath Station did not open until 1867! But even without the busy station that Snow Hill became later, there must have been quite a contrast between the rural outlook of Turners Hill and the increasingly busy city of Birmingham.

On 25 Dec 1854 Sarah Redfern was to marry William Damby or Danby, a miner, at Dudley St. Thomas.

Her father Joseph’s occupation then was given as a Furnace labourer and a Joseph Redfern was one of the witnesses, possibly her brother Joseph who would have been 21 by this time but more likely to have been her father. Sarah and William had ten children, born in Cradley Heath and then The Knowle before William died at The Knowle in January 1873, aged only 41. He was buried in St Giles. By 1881 Sarah had moved to Dudley with the younger four of her children. Among the children of the couple were several with the recurring Redfern names, including Ann Maria (known as Maria) and a Solomon. Sarah died in December 1885, aged 58 and was buried on 20 Dec 1885 at St Giles, with her abode shown as 26 Cinder Bank, Netherton.

So Sarah does not appear in the hamlets after the 1841 Census, although at one later stage she was living at The Knowle, just around the corner from Lost hamlets.

Eliza Redfern – 1831-1909

The next daughter was Eliza, born in about 1831/2, and baptised on 12 August 1831 at Dudley St Thomas was still at home in 1851. On 15 Jun 1859 Eliza married Daniel Hughes at St. James Church Parish, Dudley, and the couple made their home in Dudley, where they had 5 children. Eliza died in September 1909. So Eliza only appears in the hamlets in one more Census, the 1851, before moving to Dudley.

Joseph Redfern 1833-1912

Joseph stayed firmly on Turners Hill, all his life, and married Ann Maria Taylor in 1856, another Ann Maria! Was she related? There were certainly Taylors living on Turners Hill so I shall check this out. Emma Redfern was born in the June qtr of 1854, but Joseph and Ann Maria did not marry until June 1856 so it is not known whether or not Emma was Joseph’s child. However, she was always described as his daughter on census returns and used the name Redfern until her marriage so she may have been. Joseph and Ann Maria went on to have Thomas in 1856, William in 1858, Sarah in 1860, Ann Maria in 1864, Samuel in 1866, Joseph in 1869, John in 1870 and James in 1873.

In 1861 there were three Redfern families living in a row on Turners Hill, this Joseph, his brother (or half-brother) Thomas Priest/Redfern and his father. By 1871, Joseph was working as a labourer in a ‘potyard’, presumably Doulton’s factory. In his census entry in 1901, Joseph was, at 69, still working as a labourer in the stone quarry. In 1911, still at Turners Hill, he was noted as a pottery labourer but also Old Age Pensioner, a whole lifetime of hard physical labouring of one sort or another.

He states in 1911 that his marriage had resulted in 9 children of whom only four were still alive. Ann Maria died in 1903, buried on 14 Jul 1903 and Joseph died in 1912. He was buried on 07 May 1912 at St Giles, his abode given as 3, Turners Hill.

William Redfern 1835-1917

William also stayed in the hamlets, living on Turners Hill until his marriage to Elizabeth While in Halesowen in 1871, when he moved to 6 Perry’s Lake where he stayed until his death in January 1917. William and Elizabeth had no children. William was a general labourer all his life, sometimes working at the pottery and his last census entry in 1911 he stated that he was an “Old Age Pensioner, Retired Labourer Moving Pipes”. William was buried at St Giles on 17 Feb 1917. Elizabeth died in 1926 and the entry in the Burial Register at St Giles says that she was ‘late of Perrys Lake’.

Ann Redfern 1838-1919

Ann Maria married Frederick Hadley in the Dudley Registration District in the last quarter of 1857, (although I only know this from GRO Index and have not yet found the marriage). They lived in Lye Cross for a while before moving to Turners Hill and they had at least eight children: Joseph in 1859, William in 1861, Mary in 1863, Ann Maria in 1865, Thomas in 1868, Sarah in 1871, Eliza in 1877 and Ellen in 1881. They stayed living on Turners Hill, next door to Ann’s older brother Joseph until their last census entry in 1901. Frederick died in 1909 and was buried at St Giles on 31 Jul 1909. Ann died in 1919 and was buried at St Giles on 13 Mar 1919.

Thomas Priest or Redfern 1823-

Thomas was the illegitimate son of Ann Maria or Maria Priest, probably not the son of Joseph Redfern. He married Emma Morton on 10 June 1850 at Dudley St Thomas. Emma had two children before this marriage, John in 1847 and Sarah in the March quarter of 1850. It is not clear whether these were Thomas’s children although they both subsequently used the Priest surname. Thomas and Emma had at least a further eight children: Joseph in 1854, Thomas in 1857, Ann Maria in 1858 (who died the same year), Ann Maria and Elizabeth (twins) in 1859, Mary in 1862, Eliza in 1865 and Emma in 1867. Emma, wife of Thomas died in 1895 and was buried on 04 Aug 1895 at St Giles.

Thomas Priest died in January 1905 and was buried on 19 Jan 1905 at St Giles, with his abode still given as 2 Turners Hill so he had lived there for nearly 50 years.

So this is all relating to the Redfern family as they were shown in the 1841 Census. There were more children born to Joseph and Ann Maria later but I will cover them in another post.

The Redfern Family One Name Study

There is a website about the Redfern family which is linked to a Redfern One Name Study and this may be of interest and allow Redfern family members to join forces to compare their information. Andrew Redfern who runs the website and study would welcome contacts with members of the Redfern family wherever they are. Here is the link:

https://redfernsworldwide.com/