The Hampshire Family Historian | Vol.49 No.1 | June 2022

Member’s article

police constable, apprehended the prisoner from the description given by the victim and she immediately identified him. Justice Coltman having summed up, the jury found the prisoner guilty of robbery, he at the time being armed with an offensive weapon. He was sentenced to be transported for 10 years. On 30 July 1838 he was taken from Winchester Gaol to the prison hulk York moored at Portsmouth Harbour to await transportation. Luckily for Charles his sentence was commuted to remaining on the York for the rest of his sentence where he was described on most of the quarterly musters as of good behaviour. Probably due to this, he was granted a free pardon on 2 Feb 1844 and he returned to Winchester. In the meantime, his wife Rosanna must have been devastated at being left destitute to bring up their two daughters. One of her sisters, Sophia Bailey, lived nearby and almost certainly helped out. Sophia was married to Nathaniel Bailey, a schoolmaster and sadly I found a burial record at St Johns church on 26 Jul 1840 for Rosanna Bramble aged 39. She died at home of consumption (TB) with Sophia, in attendance. The two little girls, Harriet and Elizabeth, were then taken into the Workhouse where they were still residing on the 1841 census, aged 10 and 8. Harriet struggled to survive and is recorded in the Workhouse Admissions Register in 1843. She was in the local newspaper in January 1845 up before the magistrates in the Borough Court – “Maria Hall, Harriet Bramble and James Zillwood, inmates of the Winchester Union, were charged with absconding from the Workhouse and carrying away clothing, the property of the Guardians – Hall and Bramble

1 month each, Zillwood 21 days.” On 9 October 1847 Charles, Harriet (described as a prostitute), and Elizabeth were all three admitted to the Workhouse. Harriet was buried in West Hill Cemetery aged 18, abode Workhouse, on 8 Aug 1849, cause of death is given as consumption. Elizabeth fared slightly better in that she found employment locally. On the 1851 census she is a servant, aged 19, lodging with William Newsam and family, a Licenced Victualler and Lodging house Keeper in St Johns Street, Winchester. In 1861 she is living in New Alresford as a housekeeper to William Freeman, 53, a wheelwright. But in 1871 William Freeman is living on his own and I was sad to discover that Elizabeth had died in the Union Workhouse, New Alresford in June 1868 aged 35. Again the cause of death is consumption. Meanwhile, Charles was struggling to survive after his release in February 1844. He went back to the parish of his birth, Crawley, which probably put the wind up the inhabitants who would have known of his imprisonment as I found a document: “Division of Winchester in the County of Southampton, To Wit: We the Rev Robert Wright, Sir Samuel Raymond Jarvis and William Crawley Yonge, three of the Justices of our Lady the Queen, assigned to keep the peace in the said Division and County and also to hear and determine divers Felonies, Trespasses and other misdemeanors in the said Division and County committed. To the Constable of the Parish of Crawley in the said Division and County, and to the Keeper of the County Bridewell, Winchester in and for the said County –

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