The Hampshire Family Historian | Volume 50 No.1 | June 2023

Member’s article

A Faithful Servant Newspapers can be a very useful source for finding out information about ancestors. It was a death notice published 12th May 1888 in both The Hampshire Telegraph and the Sussex Agricultural Express that gave me some extra information about Jane BEARD. The notice read ‘ BEARD – on the 2nd inst., at Funtington House, Jane Beard, for 42 years in the service of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Provo Wallis, G. C. B., aged 81 years.’ Jane BEARD was my 2 x Great Aunt and was the first child of William BEARD (1765-1835) and Sarah GIBBS (1775-1854), who had married at Alverstoke on 10th September 1805. Jane was baptised at St Mary, Portsea on 2nd March 1806 and she had two brothers, Joseph (1808-1876) and John (1810-1882) and a sister, Sarah (1816-1889). I imagine, like so many girls at that time, Jane must have started working as a servant at an early age. On the 1841 census a Jane BEARD aged 30 (rounded down from 35) was a female servant living at an address in Kings Terrace, Portsea. There were three households at this property. The first was occupied by Sarah SIMPSON (aged 35), lodging house keeper. The second was occupied by Jane LONSDALE (aged 60), ‘independent’, Alured LONSDALE (aged 35), ‘army’ and Harriett LONSDALE (aged 25) ‘independent’. The third was occupied by Jane JONES (aged 50) ‘female servant’ and Jane BEARD (aged 30) ‘female servant’. It is not clear if the two Janes

According to the notice of her death, Jane must have started working for Provo Wallis and his family around 1846 when he was married to his first wife, Juliana (who died in 1848). He married his second wife, Jemima, in 1849. Jane appears on the 1851 census at a property in Grove Road, Portsea as a maid servant in the household of Provo W P WALLIS , a Captain R N Half Pay, his wife, Jemima, and two adult unmarried daughters (Elizabeth and Julia). The family also had a butler (James JOHNSON ), a lady’s maid (Eliza COX ), a cook (Harriot F BISHOP ), a footman (George FRENCH ) and another maid servant (Mary PILGRIM ) at this address. Clearly Jane had no ambitions to further her position or to change employer as on the 1861 census and at the age of 55 she was still a house maid. By 1861 Jane had moved with the family to a property in Funtington Street, Funtington, West Sussex. According to the census return Provo WALLIS was now Sir Provo W P WALLIS ; Vice Admiral Royal Navy and his wife was Lady Wallis. One unmarried daughter (entered as Miss WALLIS , but would have been Julia, more correctly Juliana) still lived with them. Jane BEARD was recorded

worked for Sarah SIMPSON or the LONSDALEs or whether they worked elsewhere.

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