Hi. my husband is descended from Mary's sibling George born 1827. I believe Mary and John Allen lived for a while at Papworth, Cambridgeshire where they had a son Francis. They then moved to Norwich Thorpe, Norfolk where they had a daughter Emily at the beginning of 1851. That year found them at their home at 2 Thorpe Road where John was employed as a railway porter. Mary was at home with the two children helped by her niece Jane King (a.k.a. Gibson Brewster). They also had a lodger William Boyes who was a railway clerk. Next came a son John born in 1854, George born 1857, Joseph born 1858 and Henry born just four months before the 1861 census. At that time the family was boarding with Francis J. Chatfield the superintendent of the locomotive railway department of the Eastern Counties Railway at his house along Foundry B Road. John was employed as a railway porter while Mary was employed as housekeeper, enabling her to take care of their five children.
John took over as licensee of the “Evening Gun” Chalk Hill Road, (now Rosary Road) Thorpe Hamlet on July 28th 1868, but he didn’t stay long, relinquishing the licence to Edward Lake on April 6th of the following year. (The house adjoined Lollards Pit. This is a hollow cut into the side of a hill and the area is known to have been used for the practice of burning at the stake, so had a reputation for being haunted.) By 1871 they had moved to Cattle Hill in St. Michael’s parish of Thorpe where John kept an eating house next door to the Shire Hall Tavern, John junior was an engine fitter and George was a labourer in the station. Mary was kept busy looking after their seven lodgers helped by a nineteen year old servant named Rebecca Jeffries. The two youngest sons twelve year old Joseph and ten year old Henry were staying with Francis Chatfield, now an engineer, at his home on Boundary Road.
John died in the first quarter of 1877 and in 1881 Mary had her daughter and two grandchildren staying with her at her home at Ormesby St. Margaret, West Scratby, Norfolk. Emily had married Henry Walpole Gilbert, a joiner, in the spring of 1867 and they had three children, Florence M. born 1871, Mary Ann born in 1874 and Henry H. born in 1877. At the time of the census the middle daughter stayed at home with her father. Mary herself was recorded as a “retired licensed victualler”. I think she died in the spring of 1892. Does this tie in with your information?
Regards, Sue Brewster
