The Smart family

Reproduced with the kind permission of Geoff Gwatkin

In the 1847 Tithe map, Frances Smart was listed as occupying both of the houses circled in green. But I believe they were living at number 1122, where Ashen Plains are, as number 958 was on what was then called Sinegar Lane.

In ’41 Francis, a 50-year-old labourer, was living with his wife Lucyna (nee Hill), their daughter Elizabeth and her two illegitimate sons, Henry and Edwin. Oddly, Henry was baptised in St Martins, and his brother was baptised in the non-conformist chapel in the village.

Frances and Lucina had been convicted for assault in 1824, and were imprisoned for 3 months.

In 1851, the widowed Lucina was living in the same place with Elizabeth’s third illegitimate child, Ellen. Her mother Elizabeth had married Robert Reynolds, a mariner, ten years her junior, the year before, and was living in Hamfallow, Berkeley with Henry and Edwin (both of whom now had the surname Reynolds).

In 1861, Robert and Elizabeth were living in Salter Street, Berkeley, with Henry and Ellen (both now called Smart). Henry was recorded as being a mariner.

In 1870, he married Maria Cooper in Berkeley.

In 1871 Henry, now a Gloucester pilot, was living in Berkeley with his wife Maria, and 9 month old son Edwin. In the 1881 through to the 1911 Census’ Henry and his family (including his stepfather in 1901) are living at Brookend, Berkeley.

Henry died, aged 75, in 1913. In the probate register, he is recorded as dying at 68, Roath Court Road, Cardiff, where his daughter Laura lived in 1921. He was buried in Berkeley churchyard. Maria, his wife, also died at Roath Court Road, in 1926.

After the 1851 Census, Edwin disappears.

The areas circled in green indicate how far Henry migrated in his life (a distance of about 8 miles).