On Borrow’s Gypsies family tree, published in 1910 in the Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, there’s a small knot of people at the bottom of one page with no details attached to them.
They are Bertram [C15 in the tree], Herbert [C16], Beatrice [C17], Norah [C18] and Ambrose Smith [C19], the children of Faden John Smith [B10] and his partner Alice, a non-Gypsy whose surname, according to the tree, is ‘Penden’. Faden John Smith himself is the brother of Ambrose Smith [B8], the ‘Jasper Petulengro’ of the novels of George Borrow.
As far as I’m aware, little or no work has ever been done to trace Faden John’s family or identify the people in it. Until now, that is. For research into Faden John, Alice and the children has revealed that they left England in the late-1860s to make their home in Ireland and that they never returned to live permanently in England again. Perhaps this is the reason why their Smith relatives based in England couldn’t provide T.W. Thompson with any useful information about them when he was compiling the family tree.
John Farthing Smith – to give him the name that he is invariably recorded by in the historic documents discovered so far – married Alice Penn [rather than ‘Penden’] in Hatcham, South London, on 24 October 1857. Alice was indeed a non-Gypsy, born in a street close to Liverpool Street Station in the City of London in 1837, the daughter of a merchant’s clerk.
By the time of the 1861 census, we find the couple camped in caravans at Mile End, Bow, East London. They now have one child, recorded in the census as a daughter called Bertha, aged 10 months. But a birth certificate shows that the child was in fact a son, Bertram Farthing Smith, who was born in 1860 in Old Ford Road, Bow. With John and Alice in 1861 are two more adults: John’s sister Elizabeth Smith [B9], the widow of Elijah Buckley, and her son William Smith [C13]. William gives his age as 25 and his birthplace as Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. Both John and William give their occupations as horse dealers.
Two more children arrive in the family before they leave London: Herbert, who was baptised at St Mary’s, Stratford Le Bow, London, in 1862; and in 1864, Beatrice Alice, born in a house at 1 North Street, Poplar, London.
And then, off go the family to Ireland, possibly as adherents of the ball-giving group of Gypsies led by John’s nephew George Smith [C12], who you can read about elsewhere on this blog. George is the other son of the Elizabeth Smith mentioned above and therefore the brother of William.
In Ireland, John and Alice add two more children to their family. Leonora Eugenie Smith was born on 3 March 1869 in Strabane, County Tyrone. Ambrose – recorded as Lewis William Ambrose Smith – was baptised in Killeshin, County Carlow, on 19 June 1876.
It appears that John and his nephew William Smith may well have gone into business together as horse dealers in the Irish city in which they all eventually settled, Dublin. Either that or the two brothers William and George started up a business, perhaps with John’s help, but with George’s involvement being rather remote: he was living in Scotland in 1891 and 1901 and in Wales in 1911.
John Farthing Smith died on 21 April 1891 at Rear of 41 Rutland Square [later to be re-named Parnell Square]. The registrar appears to have started to write the word “Far” between John and Smith but has then crossed that out. John is described as a 69-year-old horse dealer. The informant of the death is his son Herbert of the same address. As confirmation that this John Smith is indeed the right person, his address at death is also the address of another family member four years later, his nephew and possibly his business partner William Smith. John was buried at Rathcoole, County Dublin, according to the Irish Genealogy website but the original document is not currently available online. No record of a will or an administration can be found for him.
John’s widow Alice continued to live in Dublin. We find her in the 1901 census with her children Bertram, Beatrice, Leonora and Ambros [sic] living at 41 Granby Lane, Dublin. In the 1911 census she and her daughter Leonora are living alone at 12 Emor Street, Dublin. She died in 1920 in Sandford Avenue, Dublin, and the administration of her estate was granted to her son Bertram Smith, described in the calendar of wills as a ‘merchant’.
And what became of the children? Here’s a potted biography for each of them:
Bertram Smith
He became a notable horse dealer in Ireland and is recorded in newspaper reports in the late 1800s attending horse fairs and possibly owning race horses. He travelled back to England to marry, wedding Eleanor Rimmer, daughter of a joiner from Liverpool, in Egremont, Cheshire, in 1901, By the time of the 1911 census, he was back in Dublin and had two children: Bertram, born in Dublin in 1903; and Eleanor, known as Nellie, born 1909, again in Dublin. Bertram’s wife Eleanor died in 1920 in Dublin. Bertram then married for a second time, to a Jane Jenkins, a farmer’s daughter, in 1923 at St Stephen’s, Dublin. His address then is given as Lad Lane, Lower Baggot Street. It’s not known if he and Jane had any children. Bertram’s death has not yet been traced.
Beatrice Smith
She married a Londoner called William Thompson Mackey, a designer of machinery, in 1901, in Dublin North Registration District. In the 1911 census, the couple are living in Fulham, London, with no children of their own but with a niece called Alice Elizabeth Smith, aged 5, born in Dublin. But both Beatrice and William Mackey seem to have returned to live in Ireland at some point after that. Her death, as Beatrice Alice Mackey, is recorded at 115 Fortfield Road, Dublin, on 19 April 1945.
Herbert Smith
No reference has been found for Herbert after his 1862 baptism at St Mary’s, Stratford Le Bow, London, apart from in 1891 when he registers the death of his father John Smith in Dublin. He doesn’t appear in the Irish census of 1901 or 1911.
Leonora Smith – the ‘Norah’ of the family tree
Leonora didn’t marry. She continued to live with her mother Alice until Alice’s death in 1920. Her own death is recorded on 20 June 1929 at Adelaide House, Dublin, possibly a hospital, aged 60.
Ambrose Smith
Ambrose followed the profession of horse dealer like his father and cousins. He married Bridget Behan, daughter of a steward, on 22 January 1904 at St Mary’s, Dublin. Within two years, he was dead. His death is recorded on 4 June 1906 at 41 Granby Place [sic], Dublin. He and Bridget appear to have had only one child – a daughter called Alice Elizabeth Smith who is living with his sister Beatrice in London in 1911. Alice Elizabeth was born in the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin on 14 May 1905 but without a forename being registered on her birth certificate. The parents’ names – Ambrose Smith of 41 Granby Lane and Bridget Smith formerly Behan – confirm her identity.
And a mysterious unknown son called John Smith too?
In the Irish calendar of wills and administrations for 1896, there is a reference to the death in Dublin on 11 June 1896, of a John Smith, described as a ‘gentleman’ of 29 Nelson Street, Dublin. The administration is granted to his mother, Alice Smith, of the same address. Could this be a previously unknown son of John Farthing Smith and Alice Penn? Unfortunately, most Irish wills and administrations were destroyed by fire in the early 20th century so this index reference is tantalisingly all that survives. More than that, there does not appear a record of a John Smith dying in Dublin in 1896 in the General Register Office death index so we have no further evidence about the identity of this man.
Updated on 8 June 2022.
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