Last-ditch attempt to find Florence Maud Marjorie Brooks: can you help?

[JaneyH_104]

I’m wondering if anyone can help me find any details about the above-named person.  She was the second partner of my great-grandfather, Oliver William Bowdler (1883-1953).

To set the scene, Oliver married my great-grandmother (Lilian Maud Evans) in 1908 and went on to have nine children together, one of whom was my grandfather.  Up until 1922 they lived in Blaize Bailey and then Newnham in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire.  In 1922 my great-grandmother was sent to the workhouse in Westbury-on-Severn; the children were with her briefly, then (apart from my grandfather) sent to a children’s home.  Oliver was committed to a month’s hard labour at Gloucester Prison in late 1922 for not having contributed towards his wife’s upkeep.  I know nothing more about my great-grandmother, apart from the fact she died in a mental institution in Devon in 1952 (I have her death certificate).

At some point Oliver moved to Cardiff.  His next child, Peter W.O. Bowdler, was born in Cardiff on 16 October 1923.  The birth certificate records the father as being O.W. Bowdler, occupation motor driver (wholesale grocers), living at 57 Penhevad Street, Cardiff.  The mother is shown as Florence Maud Marjorie Brooks, occupation domestic servant at the same address.  Both parents are listed as being informants of the registration, but there is no indication that Oliver and Florence were married.

There then follow five more Bowdler children with the mother shown as Brooks: twins Patrick and Gordon (born and sadly died 1925, Cardiff); Marion (born 1926, Cardiff); Ruth (born 1927, Okehampton Devon, died 1928 same place); and Kenneth (born & died 1929, Okehampton, Devon).  I have newspaper reports of the funerals of Ruth and Kenneth who died in Devon.  In both cases they refer to the parents as “Mr & Mrs O. Bowdler, who have only recently come to reside in the vicinity”.

At some point in the 1930s Florence disappears from the scene; Oliver had three further children between 1938 and 1943 with Beatrice Manley, whom he later married in 1946.  Again, from newspaper reports, I know that Oliver divorced in 1945 – I assume this divorce is actually from my great-grandmother … not least because her death certificate says she’s the divorced wife of Oliver William Bowdler.

So – finally – some questions.  Can anyone find a marriage between Oliver and Florence?  I’ve looked on and off for the past year but have been unable to find one.  I’m therefore assuming they never actually married.  Can anyone find a birth or death record for Florence?  All the information I have (which not much) is shown above.  Despite there being three first names, Brooks is such a common surname that nothing I’ve turned up can be her with any degree of certainty. Workhouse minutes clearly indicate that Oliver was still in Newnham in January 1923, yet Peter was born October the same year.  My assumption is therefore that Florence either lived close by (and they eloped to Cardiff when she was pregnant) or that she was already in Cardiff and Oliver visited periodically, moving there properly at some point during 1923).

I have plenty of information about my great-grandfather - it is Florence Brooks who I'm focusing on here.

[coombs]

Hi

I take it you have no info on when Florence was born or where. I did find a Florence Maud M J Brooks born in 1876 in Biggleswade in Bedfordshire. Long shot but may be worth considering. She would have been 47 though in 1923 and over 50 in 1929 so doubtful she would have had a baby at 53.

I even typed Florence Maud Marj* into Ancestry and found nothing obvious other than a Mary Florence Maud Marjorie Ralph who died in 1952 in Dorset according to wills and administrations. She was a widow and the Administration was granted to Lionel Percy Valery Veale a schoolmaster.

I see you already have the info on the 1908 marriage to Maude Evans.

[avm228]

Given that Florence was as fertile as she seems to have been in the mid-late 1920s (a birth pretty much every year) one would have thought she was born after about 1890 and very likely around the turn of the century.

Are there any traces of her at all between Kenneth's funeral and the start of the Beatrice Manley relationship?

[JaneyH_104]

Thanks both.

Coombs: the Florence Brooks born 1876 strikes me as an unlikely match.  Aside from the unlikelihood of bearing a child at aged 53 so long ago, what I know of Oliver's behaviour would incline me much more towards a younger woman.  His first wife (my great-grandmother) was born 1885, so just a little younger than he was himself.  However Beatrice, his 2nd wife / 3rd partner, was born in 1910 and therefore younger than my grandfather! 

avm28: the only possible information I have relating to the period between Kenneth's funeral and the Beatrice Manley relationship is a newspaper report from June 1932, which relates to Oliver being in debt.  It says "debtor attributed his failure to loss on farming owing to a slump in prices, expenses arising from ill-health, and death in the family; insufficient earnings."  I don't know whether the death mentioned is that of Ruth and Kenneth in 1928 and 1929, or whether Florence passed away.  I've not been able to trace either a Bowdler or Brooks female adult death around that time.

[jaywit]

Janey Am I correct that there were 2 surviving children of Florence? Peter and Marion.

Have you traced what happened to them?

[coombs]

It is a bit of a to do. I would guess Florence was born 1890-1900. She may have been married before, seems unlikely but possible she may have been married to a Brooks.

She may have split up from Oliver and left the area, even the country, I cannot find any obvious things on the passenger lists of a Florence Bowdler or Brooks. Her middle names are good but she may have only used one of them or 2 of them. It is vexing when someone just vanishes off records after a certain period with no obvious trace.

[jaywit]

Looks like Peter died in 1955 in London unmarried, he is on a tree on Ancestry.

Probate was granted to his sister. She is private on the Ancestry tree and could still be alive.

[JaneyH_104]

This one is very frustrating. It's not that I need Florence to further the research into my own direct line, since I'm not descended from her.  It's more a case of wanting to fill in the details of my great-grandfather's life; my Mum has little recollection of him since he died when she was just aged 10.  My grandfather (Mum's father) never spoke much about his childhood; all that was said was that he had a tough upbringing which - from the facts I've gathered - is certainly true. 

While my Mum knew about there having been three wives/partners she was unaware about the workhouse, Oliver's spell in prison, and had assumed her grandmother had died in the 1920s, not 1952. 

jaywit: My Mum has told me about Peter so I have his details, and I'm aware that Marion could still be alive.  I know she married and had two children.

[avm228]

It looks to me likely that Marion married twice (to Mr Collins in 1942 and Mr Lemon in 1971) and died as Marion Olive Lemon, DOB 15 May 1926, in Portsmouth in 2002.