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b.c1816-d.1903
Horizontal Tree View – Ancestry
Background
Dennis, the son of Patrick and Mary Driscoll, was born c1819 in Cork, Ireland. A possible baptism for him was found in Skibbereen, Cork, on 11th December that year.
Dennis had three younger siblings – Michal, Ellen, and Margaret. The family all moved to England before the start of the Irish Potato Famine in 1845.
Care has had to be taken as it seems that there were two Dennis Driscolls married to two Mary Anns living in the same district.
Marriage to Mary in London
Where exactly Dennis met his future wife Mary Murray from Chatham in Kent, is unknown, but the couple were married on 24th October 1837 in St Mary Newington Church, Southwark. Dennis was recorded as being a bachelor who was working as a labourer while living with his family in Wool Pack Yard, Kent Street; his father was recorded as Patrick Driscoll, a gardener.
Mary Murray, a spinster, lived at 55 Kent Street, and recorded that her deceased father was John Murray. Their witnesses were Margaret Murray and Dennis Desman, who along with the newly married couple, signed the marriage register with an ‘X’.
Dennis and Mary had six known children:
Patrick born 1839
Mary born 1841
John born 1844
Bridget born 1849
Jerimiah born 1852
Dennis junior born 1858
1841 Census
When the 1841 UK Census was taken, Dennis’ parents and siblings were recorded as living at 18 Woolpack Yard, just off the Kent Road [now the Old Kent Road], alongside many other Irish migrant families who worked primarily as costermongers, labourers, and street sellers. Patrick, however, was working as a ‘Mop Maker’, while Michal was a labourer. Neither Mary nor her daughters Ellen and Margaret, were recorded as working.
The whereabouts of Dennis and Mary, along with their son Patrick who had been born in 1839, is unknown but Mary would have been pregnant with her second child Mary who was born later that year.
A growing family
Over the next ten years Dennis and Mary’s family grew with the births of John in 1844, and Bridget in 1849. When the 1851 Census was taken, Dennis and his family, along with his sister-in-law Ellen Murray, were living at 8 Caroline Crescent, Southwark St George, Surrey. It is unknown what happened to Bridget after this census was taken.
Dennis was working as a bricklayer’s labourer to support his family which continued to grow with the birth of Jeremiah in 1852.
Admission to the Workhouse
On 19th January 1854, Mary was admitted with her children Patrick, Mary, John, and Jeremiah into the Newington Workhouse. They were all discharged on 27th January 1854 but were readmitted on 28th February under ‘distress‘. Mary’s year of birth was recorded as 1817 and that she was a Hawker coming from the parish of Cork, Ireland; they were all discharged on 4th March 1854 by Mary’s own request.
Another son, Dennis junior, was born in1858.
1861 Census
The 1861 Census recorded the family home as 4 Wallace’s Alley, which was on the corner of Mint Street, Southwark St George. Dennis’ father Patrick, a wheelwright’s labourer, and his mother Mary were also living there. Both Dennis and Mary were recorded as being aged 42, so born c1819. How Dennis had become blind in one eye as noted on the census form is unknown, but as he was still working as a bricklayer’s labourer, maybe it had been an accident at work. Their son Patrick, aged 22, was also working as a bricklayer’s labourer; daughter Mary was working as a cotton winder and was aged 19; son John was aged 16 and working as a Hawker’s boy; son Jerimiah was aged 9 and working as a Chemical Light Box Maker; son Dennis was aged 3. Mary was working as a charwoman to help boost the household’s income.
1871 Census
By the time the 1871 census was taken, Patrick, Mary, and John were not living with their parents. Dennis, aged around 52, his wife Mary aged 56, and only their sons Jerimiah and Dennis junior, were living with his widowed father Patrick. Both Dennis and 80-year-old Patrick were recorded as being labourers, while Mary was recorded as being the Lodging House Keeper of 6 Vine Yard, St George in the Martyr, Southwark. There were 21 people listed as living there, including Thomas Bullock and his son John, his daughter Martha and her 9-month-old daughter Jane. Martha would later appear as being married to Jeremiah Driscoll, who according to her daughter Jane’s baptism entry, was Jane’s father. No marriage entry however has been found for the couple.
Dennis has not been found in the 1881 Census, nor has the death record of his wife Mary.
In and out of the workhouse
By 1890 Dennis had already been in-and-out of the Lewisham Workhouse, but when the 1891 census was taken on the 5th April, he was recorded as a 65-year-old widowed inmate of the Little Sisters of the Poor, a house for the aged poor in Manor Road, Stoke Newington. Named St Ann’s House, it was a very large brick building with a statue of the Virgin and Child in a niche over the central entrance, and a central cupola.
By November 1891 he was destitute and was admitted back into the Lewisham Workhouse. Dennis then continued to be in-and-out of the workhouse every few months for the next ten years.
Admission to Horton and death
The 1901 census records him as an 82-year-old widowed pauper who was still trying to find work as a Bricklayer’s labourer. On the 5th October 1901 Dennis was admitted to the Lewisham Workhouse for the last time. He was moved to the workhouse infirmary on 28th April 1902 and then the following month, on 8th May, he was moved to the Horton Asylum in Epsom.
Dennis was aged 84 when he died there on 14th October 1903. His body was buried in grave 322 in the Horton Estate Cemetery on 20th October.
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