Chapter 6.

INTRODUCING SAMUEL AND MARY GILBERT AND THEIR LIFE IN ENGLAND

It is most unfortunate that a Gilbert story has never been written for you.  We have no letters or anything like that written by them.  So I have to try to tell you how life was in England among their French speaking Huguenot friends.  They had their many small Churches which were required to  keep a record of all baptisms, marriages and burials, and most of them have been preserved.  In 1598 in England, the King and the Bishops ordered that all Churches should keep these records, and many of them in the French Churches are all in French.  But I have not been able to find a record of the baptism of Samuel Gilbert anywhere.  The Government did not bring in a law requiring all births, deaths and marriages to be properly recorded in its offices until 1836.

All we know about Samuel Gilbert is that he died in 1875 at Parramatta at the age of 86 years, so he must have been born about 1788, but his son, Thomas Gilbert, who registered his death, did not even know the name of his grandmother, Mary Gilbert, his father's mother.  His grandfather was a weaver, and so was his father, both named Samuel.  Our Samuel Gilbert was born in London, according to Thomas, but we do not know in which Huguenot suburb the Gilberts lived at that time.

As soon as he was old enough, Samuel Gilbert would have been employed as a spinner on a Spinning Jenny, or as an apprentice weaver on a loom.  But he also went to school, for he could read and write.  The local Church community Minister was probably the teacher at the school, for those Huguenot people were very industrious, and made sure that their children were educated as well as learning the trade of weavers.  Every time that his name appears in the Church records, he is shown as a weaver.

But, in a petition which he wrote later to the Bank of England in 1816, seeking assistance for his wife, Mary, and her five children, he stated that he was by trade an Engine Weaver who worked in the employ of the Honorable East India Company for 14 years.  So that, from the year 1802, he had given up work in the weaving industry when it slumped at that time, and he became a porter on the London Docks, a wharfie.

The next important event was the marriage of Mary Amanet at St. Dunstan's Church at Stepney on 18th May, 1806.  

She was the daughter of Jeremiah Amanet and his wife, Mary, who lived in George Yard, and we have the record of her baptism at the Church of St Leonard at Shoreditch on 30th June, 1788, which shows that she was born on 10th June 1788, so that she was only 17 when she was married.  The record states that, at that time, both Sam and Mary were residents of Mile End New Town Hamlet in the Parish of Stepney and, by reference to the following map, we find that that Hamlet lay just to the East of White Chapel Church which was situated on the corner of Whitechapel and Union Street.

They were probably living in their dwelling house in the Hamlet of Mile End New Town when their first baby, Samuel, was born, six weeks later, on 9th July 1806, when they were both aged 18 and he was baptized at the Church of St Matthew at Bethnal Green.  Sam was working at the London Docks because the weaving industry was in so much trouble that some weavers were getting wages of only about Five shillings a week.

The next child was another boy, John, who was born in Hackney Road, London on 3rd November 1807, although he was baptized at St. Leonard's Church at Shoreditch where the record states that the family was then living in Union Street.

Click on the image, left, for a full page display of the detailed map of London

 Click on the image, left, for a full page display of the Marriage Register.

Then they had a daughter Mary Anne, who was born on 7th January, 1812, at Bethnal Green, and then another daughter, Charlotte, on 6th May, 1814, and they were all living at New Inn Yard.

And what was life like in London then ?

First of all, there had been Revolutions everywhere, but the biggest was the French Revolution in 1792, when the Paris mob stormed the Bastille Prison in Paris, and King Louis and Queen Marie Antoinette and many nobles were beheaded by a machine which was called a guillotine which was used for that purpose instead of the old method of cutting heads off with an axe.  Then France started a war with Britain in 1793, and that went on until 1815.  And, during all this time, the Gilberts were living with their four children at New Inn Yard.

In those days they probably had a couple of rooms in a larger building, just a living room and bedroom, for which they paid rent.  There was no tap water or a nearby stream, so all the water had to be drawn from a well down the street, using a windlass and a rope with a bucket on its end.  The water was ground water which came in slowly from the side to fill the well.  Richer people, who could catch the rain off their roofs, used barrels in which to collect the water.  There were only public toilets down the street which were used by most people and which were emptied by night men.  If the Gilberts had a bath once a week they were lucky.  Their fire was just coal, for coke had not been invented, and there was very little wood for burning.  So all the buckets and boilers would be filled with water from the well and heated on the open fire.  They would have had a big tub in which everyone had a bath in their turn.  Father Sam first.  Then mother.  Then young Sam, followed by the three other children.  By the time that Charlotte had her bath, the water would have been rather dirty and, as Father Sam and the two boys tipped the dirty water out into the street, they had to be careful that little Charlotte was not thrown out with the bath water.

There were no trains then, but coaches ran long distances between the cities.  There was nothing on which they could ride short distances, so everyone walked unless they were rich enough to own a carriage or were still well off and had a horse and cart.  But the Gilberts just walked.

Most of you will have seen the film "Oliver Twist".  I hope that you still remember that and the colour film, "Oliver", which is a little better.  But, in the first film, you are looking at London just as it was when the Gilberts were living at New Inn Yard.  There was no electricity or gas, so there were no street lights.  For lighting, they used candles, for kerosene had not been invented for use in street lights.  Oil lamps were just a little wick in a basin of oil, and gave poor light.  Candles were better.

Samuel Gilbert would be earning only about £1 a week as a porter, for the best times had passed.  The weavers were thrifty people, but some were earning only five shillings a week.  Mary Gilbert had to be very careful with their money , for rent still had to be paid.  They probably had plenty of blankets, sheets and rugs from the weaving trade and also cloth for making clothes, but gruel, bread, soup, jam and cheese must have been their chief food, for it would have cost money to buy fruit.

And of course, there were all the diseases - small pox, measles, influenza, bronchitis, plague, fever, diphtheria, and typhoid - you name it, they had it, and had to be ready for it as well.  But Sam and Mary did not lose any children with sickness while they were in London.

There would have been little entertainment, for the children would have gone to bed almost as soon as it was dark, with their faces, hands, and feet washed, the big tub being kept for Saturday nights.

And the War was still on, with the British soldiers over in France and Spain.  There were some in India too, and a regiment or two here in New South Wales.  But times were tough for all. the biggest employer in Britain at this time being the Royal Navy.

You will remember that little Oliver was an orphan who was eating his gruel with the other boys at the long table in the orphanage, where there was a big sign "God is Love".  And, when they had finished, they decided that someone should go up to the Beadle with his bowl, and ask for more.  And, of course, poor Oliver drew the short straw, and he had to go up to the top table where the Beadle and his friends were having their steak and eggs or something, for breakfast.  And how the shout of "What " from the Beadle in reply to Oliver has gone down in your history and mine of "The Boy who asked for More".

Now, Oliver became an apprentice, this time to the Undertaking and Funeral trade.  His boss was Mr. Sowerberry who had Uriah Heep for his assistant.  And Oliver had to live with his boss, and sleep in a a coffin.  Do you remember all that ?  Well, we think that little Samuel who was born in 1806, who was left in England when Mary Gilbert came out to New South Wales with only three of her children in 1816, was probably an apprentice weaver, aged 10, living with his boss in the weaving trade, and you will read more about him when you come to the Gilbert children in a later Chapter.

And, on the night of 24th May, 1815, Sam did not come home from the London Docks for his tea.  Mary had fed the four children, and had washed their faces, hands and feet, and put them to bed.  He still had not arrived, and she began to worry.  Had he been injured ?  There was no telephone for enquiry, and there were no Police Stations then.  She had heard about the Press Gang.  This was a small party of Royal Marines and Sailors from a Ship of the Royal Navy who would go around at night, grabbing young men for the Navy.  If her Sam had been found drinking in a pub after work when the Press Gang had called,  he might, by then be in the Royal Navy whether he liked it or not.  As he was a Frenchman, maybe they would not take him for fighting against the French.  In the end, she retired to bed, a lonely young mother with her four children.  Would she ever see her man again?