Thanks. I know quite a lot about the family into which she married. They were a Berkshire-based family called the Cheesemans and I have traced them back to the 1740s in two villages there (Beenham and West Ilsley). Emma married a man called 'Lot Cheeseman' ('Lot' because he was the seventh of seven sons and his mother, when he was born, said 'that's the lot'! This is the first piece of family oral history which proved to be true when I began researching and I am now quite excited about the prospect of another piece of oral history becoming more plausible with this possible Devon link. I've been looking into the history of French prisoners of war in Dartmoor and find that officers were allowed to live in one of eight 'parole towns', one of which was Moretonhampstead, where the eldest of Emma Hamlyn's possible brothers was born. This is, of course, circumstantial evidence and doesn't prove anything. However, try as I might, I cannot find any sign of Emma Hamlyn on the 1841, 51 or 61 censuses. (Neither can I find any evidence of the death of the Emma Hamlin who was christened in Devon in 1836.) By the time my Emma was married she was living in Gloucester Terrace in Paddington, so I had hitherto supposed her to be a Londoner, but I've not managed to find any sign of her or her father, William the butcher, in London. Lot was a coachman and he and Emma were living in Rusthall, Kent, when their children were born and this is where Emma died. Presumably his work had taken him here.
By the way, your suggestion that Jane Hamlin might have been a big girl rings true to the family story. The story goes that the Frenchman fell in love with a woman called Bertha. He was small and wiry and she was huge and very strong and could throw big sacks of corn on to carts which two men would usually have to handle! So I suppose Jane might have been a big girl!
Best wishes, Emma
