Marriage look-up please, All Saints Southampton

[Tickettyboo]

I am looking for the details of a marriage at All Saints, Southampton, this is way outside my usual area but the bride seems to have been in Co Durham in the 1870s and I am trying to unravel her complicated life :-)

Marriage at All Saints, Southampton

Date : 15th May 1856
Groom: William James Henry KNIGHT
Bride: Catherine Ann CHATTERS

The barebones are on Family Search, but if anyone has access to the registers and can spare the time to have a look, I'd really like to know the good stuff such as abode, occupations of Bride/Groom and both fathers.
Names of witnesses are of interest too.

Thanks

Boo

[barryd]

Google "Catherine Ann Chatters" and you come up with one reference. Scroll down to find more information on "Mundia" relating to  Catherine and her husband. She only seems to have London and Kent affiliations.

[Tickettyboo]

Google "Catherine Ann Chatters" and you come up with one reference. Scroll down to find more information on "Mundia" relating to  Catherine and her husband. She only seems to have London and Kent affiliations.

Thank you for looking, but this couple are rather more complicated than that information suggests. Maybe they were researching Henry and from 'his' records alone it all looks just tickettyboo :-)

BUT ...

In South Shields, Co Durham in the 1870s, three children were born and the parents' names were given as Henry & Catherine FLOWERDAY. Father was a Master Mariner.

Jane Maria FLOWERDAY, born 23rd Oct 1873, baptised 4th Jan 1874, St Hilda's South Shields (at the time of her birth Henry was master of the "Jane Maria" - lucky for her he wasn't still on the "North Star" !)

John Hedley FLOWERDAY, born 28th July 1875, baptised 10 Oct 1875, St Hilda's South Shields

Elizabeth Mary FLOWERDAY, birth registered Q3 1876, South Shields, I don't have her baptism but the registrar has confirmed her parents were Henry and Catherine.

By 1881, the two girls had been "adopted" by different couples (I haven't yet found the boy).
Jane Maria was recorded with a couple called GILROY and was listed as their daughter. She married, for the first time in 1893 using the name GILROY. After her husband died she re-married and in the local registers index her father's name is down as FLOWERDAY.

Elizabeth Mary was listed with the surname FLOWERDAY in 1881 and was recorded as the adopted daughter of a couple called WILKINSON. 

Quite why they were adopted I am not sure as their parents were alive and recorded on the 1881 census  on the "Tennessee" of Newcastle which was at the dockyard in Chatham. Henry was the ship's master.

I can find no marriage for a groom with the surname FLOWERDAY marrying a lady with the first name Catherine before or around the time these children were born.

There is a marriage - 27th April 1885, Poplar All Saints for  Henry John FLOWERDAY (widower), Master Mariner, to a Catherine Ann KNIGHT (widow). Bride's father's name was John CHATTERS.

When the children were born in South Shields,  Henry's first wife  (Caroline Jane THORNTON) was still alive, she didn't die till 1884. I assume that is why he and Catherine waited till 1885 to marry, despite telling the world at large that they 'were' married.

I looked for a marriage for Catherine Ann CHATTERS to a man called KNIGHT. This one I am requesting the look up for is the only 'possible' in the GRO index. The transcript on Family Search says the Bride's father was John CHATTERS, which makes it more likely to be the one I am looking for. Hopefully someone can look it up for me and I can compare the details with what I already have. It may help to pin down the death of Catherine's first husband, I'd be interested to know if 'she' was still legally married when the children were born in South Shields

Boo

[Kyrenia]

Hi, the full transcript at Southampton Archives are

William James Henry Knight, Full bachelor, Cowens Gilden, Castle Lane
Father, William Knight (captain?)

Catherine Ann Chatters, 18, Spinster, Castle lane.
Father John Chatters, Coach-builder

1856, 15 May. All Saints Parish by banns

Witnesses John Charles Waring & Ellen Waring

Regards
Kyrenia

[Tickettyboo]

Thank you Kyrenia
Very kind of you to look for me and its much appreciated.

Can you remember if  the 'Cowens Gilden' was in the occupation column? or is that a place name/address?

Boo

[Kyrenia]

Hi,
I've written just as on the index cards for the marriages so I guess it is his occupation but what that is I've no idea. 
If you like I will check the microfiche of the register at Southampton library later in the week, see if I can make any sense  of it. I'll get back to you.
Regards
Kyrenia

[Tickettyboo]

Thanks Kyrenia, I have now found the family in 1841 & 1851, father listed in 1841 as a mariner (which could correspond to him being billed as 'captain' on the marriage cert). By 1851, mother was listed as a widow and her son William is down as being a "Gilder etc", so that would link into the transcription.
Perhaps, as so often happens, the writing in the original register was very difficult to read.

If you do have time to look at the register, I would be very grateful, I would be interested to know if you can decipher the "Cowens" part of his occupation. Though I can see how Gilder could look like Gilden, I am stumped as to what Cowens may have been!

Boo

[Tickettyboo]

Request now complete.
Many thanks to Kyrenia for her help with this :-)

Boo

[brianchatters]

I can provide more information on Catherine Ann Chatters. She was known as Kate and she was a singer/dancer in the music halls from the age of seven or eight, spurred on by her mother. Her story and her relationship with Henry Flowerday is complex. She is indeed the same person who married Henry James Knight in Southampton but there are a few "little white lies" in the register. She was only 16 years old and her father was not a coach maker. He was a  poor agricultural labourer from Belchamp Otten who moved to London in the 1820s but his life did not improve and he worked as a labourer/porter wherever he could find work. After Kate started working in the variety halls, he deserted his family (or they deserted him) and he reamined in London eventually dying in the Hackney workhouse in 1873. Kate and her mother moved to Southampton because she was part of the company of artistes at the Albion Music Hall (which was in the Blue Boar Tavern in East Street, Southampton). Kate had three children by Henry James Knight and at least two of them followed their mother into show business. Her daughter Lily married Jack Selbini, a world famous trick cyclist and acrobat who, together with their children, formed the Selbinis (but that's another story!). My research into Kate's life shows that she retired from the stage in about 1873 which fits in with her liaison with Henry Flowerday (but I was not aware of that until I saw your posting). She did attempt a comeback in 1874 under the name of "Hilda" but without success. I was aware of her marriage to Henry Flowerday in 1885 but I was not aware of her earlier association with him. When Kate died in 1898, her obituary mentioned two of her children by Henry Knight but there was no mention of Henry Flowerday or their children. Henry was not very faithful as he has a liaison with Emma Sarah Porter, who was 39 years his junior. They has a son in 1896 (two years before Kate died) and they married a few months after Kate died.