Killed by Lions

[Valda]

The younger of two Phillips children born Bromsgrove on the 1871 census with her maternal grandparents in Great Dodford (Bromsgove) Worcestershire, was with her same grandparents there in 1861. Both girls were with their maternal grandparents, the Sestons, in 1881 both born Dodford.

RG9 2114 folio 51
Great Dodford Bromsgrove, Worcestershire
Maria Philips 2 Granddaughter Bromsgrove, Worcestershire

The older child Ann(e) born circa 1858 in Bromsgove from the 1871 census, is with her Phillips grandparents in Birmingham on the same census.

1861 census RG9 2146 folio 92
29 Stafford Street Birmingham
Ann E Phillips 3 Granddaughter Dodford, Worcestershire

Their mother Ellen being a child of her mother's first marriage.

Marriages Sep 1855   
Holladay  Elen     Bromsgrove  6c 451   
Holladay  Ellen     Bromsgrove  6c 451   
Phillips  Joseph     Bromsgrove  6c 451

Ellen was born circa 1838 in Sutton in Ash Nottinghamshire according to the 1851 census.
Joseph with his parents at 29 Stafford Road Birmingham on the 1851 census was born circa 1836 in Birmingham.

I don't think that helps much however in finding either Ellen or Joseph on the 1861 census, but it gives everyone enough information to also try and see if they can find them. I'm not sure the girls living with their grandparents in 1861 or 1871 should necessarily mean one or both of their parents had by then died.


Regards

Valda

[The Geneal Geologist]

Thanks Valda - I have passed on the info to my distant cousin who is the one connected to PHILLIPs. No joy on the lions yet. Could be just one of those grandiose family stories used to explain away other family matters.

Regards,
Mark

[marktod]

Thank everyone for the interest in this story which Mark Grace asked about - maybe we will find out the truth sometime.

One further piece of information which might help - a famous lion-tamer who certainly existed, John Cooper of Wolverhampton, was the brother of Charles Cooper, the husband of Joseph Phillips's sister Susannah.  John Cooper died quite naturally without any activity by lions.

As Mark says, the Phillips lion story may just be a cover-up of some kind, or there may have been some confusion in minds between the two stories.

I just noticed in a web search that there was a question about John Cooper in a letter to the Birmingham Mercury a couple of years ago., though I don't know how to follow the questioner up:

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-145738743.html

It seems unlikely that the should be two lion-tamers (not to mention Ellen) connected to the same family unless there was some reason - i.e. one had joined the curcus following the other - it would be a coincidence that both Susannah's brother and brother-in-law happened to be lion-tamers, especially as there is no other link to the circus in the family either before or since so far as we know.

Mark Todd

[Valda]

What was Joseph's occupation on his marriage?

Marriages Sep 1855   
Holladay  Elen     Bromsgrove  6c 451     
Phillips  Joseph     Bromsgrove  6c 451

Susannah's connection into the Cooper family seems to have come later, if this is the right marriage, perhaps the connection was through her brother, but if, it was a bit late for Joseph to change occupations and already be missing from the 1861 census?

Marriages Sep 1868
Cooper  Charles     Aston  6d 301   
Phillips  Susannah     Aston  6d 301

CHARLES COOPER
SUSANNAH PHILLIPS 
Marriage:  05 AUG 1868   Aston Juxta Birmingham, Warwick

Have you found the two daughters birth registrations? Do you have the certificates? What was their father's occupation at the time of their births?

Regards

Valda
 

[marktod]

Valda:

Thank you for your message.

At marriage Joseph is described as 'musician' which I guess could be consistent with working in a circus.  Going by earlier census records, his age would have been about twenty, Ellen's eighteen, at that time.

I haven't checked the two daughters' birth records to see if they give the father's occupation - the refs. are these two I would think:

Ann Margaret Phillips 6c364 (? - not very clear) Bromsgrove 1857 April-June
Alice Maria Phillips 6c34 Bromsgrove 1859 July-September

You are right - we could check these, to make sure they are the right references, and to see the father's occupation.

We certainly haven't found Joseph or Ellen in the 1861 or later census, but that doesn't necessarily mean they had already died.  A circus copuld be working anywhere, maybe even abroad.

Mark Todd

[Valda]

Alice Maria's marriage will also give her father's occupation.

Marriages Mar 1884 
Dolphin  George Bray    Bromsgrove  6c 499   
Phillips  Alice Maria     Bromsgrove  6c 499   

Thomas Phillips her grandfather is visiting the family in Dodford in 1891.

Deaths Mar 1896   
Phillips  Annie Margaret  39  Bromsgrove  6c 229

Regards

Valda

[marktod]

Valda:

Thank you for this reply and your interest and research.  We had most of this information, but not the death date of Annie, which is earlier than I had thought.  In a letter sent by her cousin Jack Hughes to his fiancee (published in the book 'Dearest Beatie, My Darling Jack') on June 13 1898 Jack wrote:

'... Then there is our poor cousin at Dodford, she has been ailing again and Mother has been over to comfort her a little, so she has been quite busy. ...'.

I had assumed this referred to Annie and had looked for a death refernce between 1898 and 1901, but obviously it must have been Maria who is referred to.

I attach a photo of Ann Phillips, mother of Joseph and Susannah and of Jack's mother (Jane, my great-grandmother, who the following year, by then Mrs Phelps, bought a house in Dodford), and wife of the widowed Thomas Phillips you mention.

Mark

[marktod]

Addition to last message:

As you are following up records, I forgot to say, so far as records are concerned:

1 - Ann Philllips, in the photo, was a witness at the marriage in 1855 of Joseph and Ellen, the other being William Seston.

2 - In the 1901 census Susannah and Charles Cooper are living in Dodford in the house Jane Phelps had bought - I don't know where Jane Phelps and her husband were, possibly out of the country.

[marktod]

Valda:

Another addition - sorry, I am just new to Rootschat, since masgrace started this thread.

There are two rootschat threads started by samul1 in 2007 which in fact refer to the same family, mentioning the Ann Phillips who is in the photo:

Birmingham st phillip's parish look up request
London Middlesex - Ann Angel

As you have been following records up I thought you might like to know this. 

Since the Ann Angel thread was started, we think we may have found an answer - a Cannon / Angel marriage in East London, from which it looks as if there were several granddaughters with name Ann Cannon born around the right time - one is quite likely to be the Ann we are looking for, though no way of deciding which.

We have got rather away from the lions, but it was Ann's son who was said to have died while in the ring with them.