The Hampshire Family Historian | Volume 51 No.1 | June 2024

Member’s article

marry in 1879. She was at school in the village and was a few months younger than Frank, but the details of his schooling are unknown. In the period from about 1868 to about 1872 she is at school in Germany at Uerdingen next to Krefeld on the Rhine, having been sent there by her father whose identity is not documented and apparently not known to Emma. As far as I know, when she returns, she continues to live in Wingerworth and is able to form a relationship with Frank. They marry in Wingerworth on 26 August 1879. Emma is shown as living in Chesterfield at the time, presumably with her mother Mary, whilst Frank is listed as resident at Kew, Surrey. This is presumably the same address that the couple continue to live in until Frank’s departure in 1887. Frank’s job is shown as railway secretary’s clerk, but now working at St Pancras station about 11 miles away, now the London terminus for the Midland Railway. (Hilda Butler, daughter of George Thomas Butler, Frank’s nephew, told me that Frank was working on timetabling.) The 1881 census shows the couple living at 42 Gloucester Road, Kew, Richmond. They now have a daughter aged 8 months, Frances Emmeline, and Ann Maria Butler, Frank’s younger sister, is visiting. A son, Frank Butler junior, is born on 1 September 1882. Frank Butler registers to vote at this address until 1887. As registration takes place in the autumn of the previous year, autumn 1886 is the last known date for him at 42 Gloucester Road. By the summer of 1887 he is in a relationship with Laura ASHLEY with whom he goes through an illegal marriage ceremony at Pancras registry office on 17 June, her 24th birthday. He gives an address in the Pancras parish, 7 Granby Street, and states he is a bachelor and working as a private secretary. (A private secretary is responsible for diary

management, filing and documentation, arranging meetings, reception duties, and managing all correspondence. Likely to work exclusively for one client or family.) There are no independent witnesses for Frank at this marriage. The registrar and superintendent registrar act as witnesses, and Maud Mary Imelda Ashley, Laura’s younger sister, acts as Laura’s witness. In December 1898 Laura acts as witness for Maud’s marriage to Howard Heaton. On this occasion she gives her name as Laura Butler. It is uncertain why Frank abandons Emma and the two children, and also whether he afterwards provides funds for them. Emma is fortunate in having a private income arising from her own illegitimacy (she shows an independent income on the 1891 census). relationships with other women during his marriage and simply walked out, causing Emma Butler to carry the burden of caring for her children without male support, which for many females in the nineteenth century might well have caused severe financial distress. There is also the possibility that Emma complained to Frank about his lifestyle and forced him out. As it turns out her second child Frank junior catches diphtheria shortly after her husband marries bigamously and he dies on 15 October 1887 in Barnet. Emma moves there with her children after Frank left the address in Kew and joins up with her mother Mary Blake (as shown on the 1891 census). It is not known whether Frank’s bigamous marriage in 1887 was actually known to the rest of the Butler family. Apart from them being on the 1891 census living at 8 St John’s Terrace in Willesden (in the borough of Harrow) there is no evidence of any other Eileen TAYLOR , Frank and Emma’s granddaughter, maintained he had

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