Augusta Matilda. Thank goodness that the Baker family picked their children’s names carefully. Well, the girls at least….
Augusta was the fourth born child of five, following Mary Lavinia, Thomas and Sarah Alice, with James coming along later. Her father, Thomas Baker (who was featured in #37 of #52Ancestors on 14 September) was born a long way from the New Forest, in Semley, Wiltshire (my only family line in the county I now live in!). Thomas held many occupations during his life time and never seems to be recorded the same way on two documents. On Augusta’s baptism on 21 February 1841 in Minstead, he is said to be a ‘cattle dealer of Cadnam’.
Growing up in Asherbridge, Eling initially, Augusta and the Baker family moved to Sway (near Boldre) in the 1840s and were living there when the 1851 census was taken (on the night of Sunday 30 March).
Thomas Baker died in 1857 and Augusta and her younger brother, James, were recorded with their mother, Rebecca – interestingly, not shown as a widow – in the 1861 census at Hedge End Corner, Sway with sister, Sarah (Alice) Kitcher and her family next door (RG9/664/78/9):
A needlewoman, Thurtel Whicher (who was a Kitcher before marriage) lived in the house above Sarah Kitcher on the schedule and I wonder if Augusta’s husband, William, was a relative of hers:
Marrying William in 1867 in Milton, I was surprised that I could not locate August Witcher (or any variant spelling) in 1871. That would be because her husband died less than a year after their marriage, buried in Milton on 17 May 1868:
Augusta married again on 10 June 1869 in St Lukes Sway to Isaac Hopkins (born 1834/5 Hordle, baptised 16 Jan 1838), a bachelor and son of James (yeoman) of Brockenhurst. In the 1871 census, she and Isaac were living next door to Isaac’s extended family at Brighton Road, Sway (RG10/1174/73/9).
Isaac Hopkins was a general/agricultural labourer and would certainly not have earned a ‘magnificent wage’. He and Augusta had five children: Thomas, Maud, James, William (known as Willie) and Ellen. With Rebecca Baker – Augusta’s mother – growing older, she moved in with the Hopkins family in Brockenhurst and in the 1881 census, she was recorded as being aged 80. But tragedy struck again for Augusta – twice over…. her mother, Rebecca, died in December quarter 1881 aged 81 and her second husband, Isaac, also died prior to the 1891 census (though his death record has yet to be located).
Augusta died shortly after the turn of the century at just 60 years old in September quarter 1902.
I do wonder:
- What happened to William Witcher/Whitcher in 1868?
- When/where did Isaac Hopkins die?
- Are there any descendants from this line out there in the New Forest still, or elsewhere in the country/the world?
