So somebody closely related to Francis John then. According to the IGI he was the eldest son of John Pyne and Mary Craze and though he was born in Exeter they moved to London soon after, John Pyne (the elder) is a leather dresser and seller, according to a tree found on ancestry they also had Thomas Pyne (who eventually went to the USA) and the artist William Henry Pyne. I investigated Thomas, but he and family moved to the USA in the late 1820s and are fairly well documented thanks to their descendent Moses Taylor Pyne (who was very very rich).
So that left William Henry Pyne a noted artist and writer, who although he often wrote anecdotes about other people of his day , seems to have remained very quiet about his own family. His fortunes also fluctuated wildly and he was declared bankrupt and imprisoned at least once. He died in 1843 in Paddington (again no PCC will). I have found that he married in 1792 to Dorothy Pearse and that he certainly had a son George in about 1800 who was also a painter and a son Charles Claude Pyne (also a painter). My theory is that Marianne & Eliza are also children of William Henry. For, this theory is the Paddington connection, William Henry died in Paddington in 1843, Eliza & Marianne first appear having children baptised in a Paddington church, Eliza was still living in Paddington when she died and Paddington is one of the areas lost from the 1841 census. The names for various members of this family do seem to relate, the timing is right, and as to Mariannes birthplace of Ireland, William Henry illustrated a book on costume of the British Isles and may have visited Ireland to make some of the drawings, he could have taken his wife with him.
Against this theory is some anecdotal evidence I have found about George who has the dubious distinction to be the second person to be divorced in this country under the new 1850s laws. He was married first to Esther Varley (I noted Marianne had a daughter called Esther), but treated her so badly she divorced him in 1858, this is part of the quote I have found
There appear to have been no depths of infamy to which this creature could not sink. Though wedded to a woman as comely as she was accomplished, and as fondly devoted to him as wife could be until his habits made him an object loathsome to every decent-minded person, he used to leave her for the worst sinks of vice ; whence he had repeatedly to be redeemed, his clothes and everything he had having been pawned or sold for the wherewithal to carry
on his debauch.
Now there are two side to all stories in divorces, but if the above is true would Marianne have named him in what were financial transactions, or Eliza in her will?. If a document can be found that defines George’s place of residence after 1852 as Oxford then I will be fairly sure we have a link, he married again there and had several children by his second wife, dying there in 1884.
What does anyone think ?
DebbieG
