Hello, I am new to RootsChat, and I have seen your messages about the Boyle sisters. They were my 2nd cousins twice removed and I have done quite a bit of research about them. Fascinating and very sad story!
Their mother, Rosina Amelia Batterham was the daughter of Robert Batterham and Martha Ponton. Robert was a bit of an entrepreneur - rather successful really! He joined the military in 1859, then left the forces and went to Islington before marrying Martha.
Coming back to Rosina Amelia, she had the most challenging of lives: she suffered from Measles when she was small and this could have been the reason that she was deaf (or deaf and "dumb", as they said in those days). She was elected to join the Deaf and Dumb Asylum in Margate in 1883 and although her entry records noted her as not very bright, she left school in 1889 with top marks.
She married William Boyle, who was also deaf and as you know had three girls. Her health however was not one of the best and she was admitted to the Mill Road hospital on at least two occasions. Then her husband died of peritonitis on 22 Oct 1914 and from there everything seems to go wrong for her. She also looses her mother in 1915, with whom she lived. She then remaries James Wilkinson, who in turn dies 5 years later of cerebral haemorrhage in 1922. I suppose this is why she "lost" her children to Dr. Barnados'. She remarries a 3rd and last time John Lucey in 1926, who is found dead in the Mersey by drowning. Suicide?
The one thing that really frustrates me is that Barnados' refuse to let me see their file, as I am not, "next of kin". I really just wanted to know whether the children were abandoned, or whether they were removed, as it was often the case in those days.
Would you be connected to them by any chance?
Hope to hear from you soon!
Beverly
