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b.1860-d.1909
George’s family
George Creed Peacock was born in Swilland, Suffolk to Ann (née Creed) and James Peacock, a farm labourer, on the 16th May 1860. He was the sixth of ten children. His birth was registered as plain George but at his baptism at St Mary, Swilland on 27th March 1862 he was given the second forename of Creed.
Swilland is a village 6 miles north of Ipswich in the parish of Bosmere and Claydon.
George’s father James was born in Swilland in 1827. His mother Ann was born in 1826 at Stratton Audley, a village near Bicester in Oxfordshire. She was the daughter of George Creed, an agricultural labourer after whom our subject was named, and Hannah (née Moore).
George’s paternal grandfather was Matthew Peacock (c1799 -1871) who was recorded in the 1851 census as a Gentleman Farmer farming 86 acres and employing 3 men and residing at Swilland Hall. His wife was Elizabeth Todd.
James and Ann’s 1847 marriage was registered in Bosmere, the district that included Swilland. A large family was to follow. Ten siblings have been found, including an earlier George who died in infancy:
Catherine Emma born 6th October 1848. Baptised 10th October
Charles James born Q4 1850. Baptised 1st December
Ann Matilda born 17th October 1852. Baptised 12th June 1853
George born Q1 1855. Baptised 5th August 1855 – died 15th July 1856 aged 14 months
Emma born Q4 1857. Baptised 28th August 1859 – died 26th November 1859 aged 1 year
George Creed born 16th May 1860. Baptised 27th March 1862
Henry Morrell born Q1 1863. Baptised 8th January 1865
Minnie Elizabeth born Q4 1865. Baptised 17th June 1866
Ada born Q2 1868. Baptised 9th August 1868
May born 6th May 1871. Baptised 18th June 1871
The baptism entries for the first four children give their mother’s name as Sarah. There is a note against the entry for Catherine Emma to explain that this is the name by which she was generally known but that her proper name was Ann.
1851
In the 1851 Census we find James 24, an Agricultural Labourer, Ann 25, Catherine 2 and Charles 6 months living in Swilland.
Ann Matilda was born in 1852 followed by the first George in Q1 1855. Sadly, George died on 15th July 1856 aged 14 months. The cause of death was Scarlet Fever, Exhaustion.
In 1857 another daughter Emma was born. Sadly, she died in 1859. .
Our subject George Creed was born on the 16th May 1860.
1861
In the 1861 Census the family was still in Swilland. They are: James 35, now a Farmer’s Horseman, Ann 35, Catherine 12, Charles 10, Ann 8 and George 11 months.
Grandfather Matthew Peacock’s death was registered in January 1871.
1871
By the time of the 1871 census, the family had moved to Otley, just over 2 miles north of Swilland. The household was James 46, now a farmer of 12 acres, Ann 46, Charles 20 Agricultural Labourer, George 10, Henry 8, Minnie 5, scholars, and Ada 2. Ann would have been pregnant with her last child May, born on 6 May 1871.
Catherine Emma, 24, had left home and was a servant to a schoolmaster and his wife in Brighton, Sussex. Ann Matilda, 19, was missing from the household and cannot be found elsewhere in the census. James’s widowed mother Elizabeth and his unmarried sister and brother Susanna and Frederick are living next door.
1881
The 1881 Census records that George Creed, aged 20, had left home and was working as a house porter, domestic servant in the Ipswich Borough Asylum. Foxhall Road.
1891
It has not been possible to find George in the 1891 census.
George’s mother Ann died in 1892.
An unexpected turn
Events now take a somewhat unexpected turn. Seventeen years after the last sighting of George in 1881 his next appearance in the official record is of his marriage to an Ann Marie Francoise Cesarine Celina Najac on the 5th February 1898.
Their marriage certificate records that George is a 37-year-old bachelor, working as a butler and residing at 9 Paddington Street, W. This appears to be an accommodation address. The bride, who signs as Celina Najac, is 56, a spinster, and residing at 14 Ifield Road, SW. This is also apparently an accommodation address. Her father is Francois Najac, a deceased farmer.
The marriage took place at The Church of the Sorrowful Hearts of Jesus and Mary, Fulham Road and was carried out by Augustine Brugnoli OSM.
It has not been possible to find any earlier information about Celina Najac. From later records it seems likely that she had been resident in Ipswich and attended a Catholic church there. We don’t know where George had been living or what he had been doing since 1881. We can only speculate about why they did not marry in Ipswich.
The Church of the Sorrowful Hearts of Jesus and Mary, Fulham Road (now Our Lady of Dolours Servite Parish) came into existence in the 1870s to promote the resumption of regular public Catholic services in England after a break on nearly 250 years. It would have been popular with a large international congregation. Possibly they chose it because they were looking for a measure of anonymity. The witnesses to the marriage were not relations of the couple but in fact the daughter and future son-in-law of the registrar who possibly had been pressed into service.
The next mention we find of Celina is a series of newspaper advertisements in May 1899 placed by the Ipswich Estate Agents R. D. and J. B Fraser saying that they had been instructed by Mrs Peacock to sell her detached house and its surrounding garden of 76 rods (about half an acre) in Camden Road, Ipswich. This was followed by another series of advertisements from June 1899 by the same agents that do not name Mrs Peacock but announce the sale by auction of a property in Camden Road with a similar description.
Sadly, Celina was to die only 19 months after the wedding on the 16th September 1899. George was present at the death and recorded as the informant on the certificate. The cause of death was Uterine Sarcoma. The address where Celina died was given as Camden Road.
Not long after Celina’s death newspaper advertisements were placed by the Ipswich solicitor W. E. Kersey asking for any persons having claims against her estate to contact him. The advertisements name George Creed Peacock as Celina’s husband but also say that Celina’s will has been proved by The Very Reverend Canon Patrick Rogers and the Reverend Henry O’Connor who were her executors. Rogers and O’Connor were priests at St Pancras Catholic Church which we can assume was the church Celina attended in Ipswich.
At first sight, from the entry in the probate register, it appeared that Celina’s estate was worth a substantial amount. The value of her effects was given as £979 10s 8d which in 2025 terms would be about £110,000.
However, the grant of probate, which we have obtained, tells us that the net value of the estate, that is after funeral expenses and debts were taken into account, was £146 4s 8d, equivalent to about £16,000.
If George had an expectation of inheriting anything from Celina he was mistaken. Her will, dated 23rd December 1898, which we have also obtained, did not leave him anything at all. The will includes bequests to her executors (£100 each), to the upkeep of St Pancras Church (£50), to a Catholic Boys’ Home in London (£100), to the Church of Notre Dame de Lourdes, Haute-Pyrenees, France (£40) and a request that her property in Camden Road and the rest of her estate should be used for the benefit of the Roman Catholic Church. Unfortunately, there wouldn’t have been enough in the estate to fulfil all these bequests.
1901
There is a George C. Peacock in the 1901 census employed as a butler by Edward Beans, a manufacturing chemist, in Brenchley near Tonbridge, Kent. His age is recorded as 33 – George would have been 41 in 1901 but the place of birth — Suffolk, Swillam (sic) — is close enough to make it very likely that this is our subject.
Failing health
The next appearance of George in official records is in the Kensington Poor Law and Board of Guardians ‘Register of Lunatics’ which records that he has been sent from the St Mary Abbots Infirmary to Horton Asylum on 27th April 1909. His year of birth is recorded inaccurately as 1864.
Ancestry
His admission to Horton Asylum is confirmed by the entry in the Lunacy Patients Register.
As with most Horton patients, no medical notes now exist.
On 18th June, only 8 weeks after his admission, George died.
The recorded cause of death was General Paralysis of the Insane (the final stage of syphylis infection), Lobar Pneumonia 5 days. George’s occupation was given as Servant and his previous address as 5 Darnley Road, Notting Hill. His age was given as 45 which was based on the wrong year of birth in the Poor Law record.
George was buried in Horton Cemetery on 24th June 1909 in grave no 447a.
What became of George’s siblings who survived into adulthood?
Only a few of George’s siblings stayed in Suffolk. There is no evidence that any of them were in contact with George, such as his name appearing as a marriage witness.
Catherine Emma married Thomas Howatt in 1875 and moved to London. She was widowed in 1893. In 1901 she was servant to a Veterinary Surgeon in Bishop Stortford, Hertfordshire. Sadly, in both 1911 and 1921 she was an inmate at Staines Union Workhouse in Stanwell, Middlesex, where she died in 1935. She had no children.
Charles James married Tamar Clark in Otley in 1875. He was widowed in 1914 and died in 1925, having spent most of his life in various villages north of Ipswich. He had no children.
Ann Matilda married John Bulmer in April 1875. He died later that year. She remarried Thomas Parker in October 1885. By 1891 she was a widow living in Reigate, Surrey as housekeeper to James Dove who she married in 1892. They had one son born in 1894. Ann died in Reigate in 1947.
Henry Morrell married Eliza Reynolds in Witnesham, Suffolk in 1884. She died in 1893 leaving him with two young children. He remarried to Annie Giles nee Aplin in Croydon, Surrey in 1919. He then lived in Ashtead, Surrey where he died in 1935.
Minnie Elizabeth was a servant in Wimbledon in 1891. She married Frederick Watson in 1901 and they had two children. They lived in Raynes Park where she died in 1923.
Ada was a servant in Newmarket in 1891. In 1901 she was housekeeper in Fulham to Edward Brooks, a widower, and his four sons. Her one-year-old daughter was also in the household. In total she had seven children with Edward between 1898 and 1908. Two of them died in infancy. There is no record that they ever married. She died in Maldon, Essex in 1951.
May married Charles Barker in Bosmere, Suffolk in 1897. They had one child. He died in 1909 and she remarried David Roper in 1910. They also had one child. She died in 1954 in Ashbocking, Suffolk.
