Ann MORAN

Ann MORAN

Ann Moran

26th July 1836 – 10th December 1903

Genealogy research is basically finding facts that dovetail together to make a story of our past. Sometimes a fact can be just one name and address and suddenly, when you thought you had hit the proverbial brick wall, the past reveals itself. In this story, it was the information ‘Mary A. Carey of 41 Great Windmill Road’ that unlocked Ann Moran’s earlier years.

The Holborn Settlement Papers for St Giles and St George Bloomsbury Parishes recorded that Ann had been born on 26th July 1836 in the Connaught/Connacht province on the western side of Ireland. This could have been in Galway, Leitrim, Mayo, Roscommon or Sligo.  However, of the censuses found, all of them state that she was born in St James Westminster, Middlesex, England. No baptism records have been found in this area for Ann or her brother Patrick who was born c1837, nor has the family been found in the 1841 English census. Ann’s sister Mary was born in 1843, but no UK birth has been found for her.

If Ann and her two siblings were born in Ireland, then they would have suffered during the Great Potato Famine that struck Ireland from 1845 to1852 and severely affected the population of western and southern Ireland. It is estimated during this time that one million people died, and one million people emigrated. It would seem likely that the Moran family were amongst those that fled to England during this time and settled in the St James Westminster area.

Ann was aged 16 when the 1851 UK census was taken. She was living with her parents Patrick and Mary Moran, and her 15-year-old brother Patrick and 8-year-old sister Mary in 5 Greens Court, Westminster St James, Middlesex. Greens Court was a narrow, heavily congested court running between Little Pulteney Street and Brewer Street in Soho. All the siblings were recorded as being born in St James Westminster, but their parents were recorded as being born in Mayo, Connacht, Ireland. Ann’s father was working as a labourer to support his family and employed 17-year-old Margaret Jennings as a domestic servant to help run the home.

Ann’s brother Patrick was aged 21 when he married 17-year-old Mary Flannery* on 19th October 1857 in St Mary in the Fields Church. They had two daughters – Mary Ann in 1858 and Catherine in 1860. Mary Ann later married Thomas Carey in 1875, and it was her name in Ann’s Holborn Settlement Papers for St Giles and St George Bloomsbury Parishes file that provided the vital family connection that dovetailed the story together.

*Mary Flannery was the sister-in-law of Margaret Flannery who was buried on 7th October 1902 in the Horton Estate Cemetery in Epsom.

Despite searching through the 1861 UK census for Middlesex>Westminster St James>Berwick Street>District 6>pages 12 – 16, only the numbers 7 – 10 Greens Court were found to have been recorded. It may have been that the enumerator did not visit numbers 1 – 6 or that records were lost or damaged before digitalization. Whatever the reason, the family were definitely living there as Ann’s mother Mary was aged 51 when she died at 5 Greens Court from chronic bronchitis on 2nd February 1865.

The informant of her death was her 22-year-old daughter Mary, who had been by her mother’s bedside when she passed away. Ann’s father Patrick was noted as being a bricklayer’s labourer on his wife’s death certificate.

Mary Moran’s death certificate

On 25th October 1867, Ann was admitted as distressed into the Westminster Union Workhouse, Poland Street, St James Westminster. The record showed that Ann, who was working as a laundress, was aged 31, single, and a Roman Catholic. Ann was still an inmate there on 12th April 1868, which was Easter Sunday, and was given leave to go to Mass at the local Catholic church. It was later reported that Ann was “Absent Chapel Liberty with House clothing“. This meant that she had failed to return to the workhouse and because she was wearing workhouse clothing it was deemed that she had stolen them.

Two days later, on 14th April 1868, Ann was readmitted but by June she was absent again from the workhouse. She may have wanted to go home as her father Patrick was ill and he himself was admitted into the Westminster Union Workhouse on 30th June 1868.

Ann was readmitted on 16th October 1868 as being destitute, but on 18th January 1869 it was recorded again that she had absconded only to be readmitted the following day.

Her father Patrick was aged 64 when he died on 3rd April 1869 in the workhouse from asthma. Asthma was a term that was frequently used as a broad term for chronic respiratory diseases, including bronchitis, emphysema, or “black lung” caused by decades of heavy manual labour, breathing in heavy coal smoke, and living in damp, unventilated Soho tenements.

Once again, on 14th June 1869, Ann absconded only to return the following day. On 9th November 1869, Ann discharged herself from the Westminster Union Workhouse. Where she went to is unknown, but it was in February 1870 that Ann, who was now aged 33 and still single, became pregnant. Whether her pregnancy had been welcomed or forced on her is sadly unknown. On 9th September she was admitted back into the Westminster Union Workhouse where, on the 17th November 1870, she gave birth to her daughter Mary.

Mary, daughter of Ann Moran, birth certificate

Ann and her 3-month-old daughter were both recorded, on separate pages, as inmates in the Westminster Union Workhouse when the 1871 census was taken on the evening of 2nd April.

On 9th August 1871, Ann’s name was recorded in the discharged side of the ledger as “Given into custody for refractory conduct in [illegible], 14 days”. The following day her daughter Mary was discharged to her mother’s care in prison. Both mother and daughter were returned to the workhouse on 25th August after Ann had served her punishment for being either stubborn, unmanageable, or violently disobedient.

Unfortunately, Mary was ill when she returned but recovered and on 6th October 1871, Ann discharged herself and her daughter from the workhouse.

When Ann and Mary were readmitted to the Westminster Union Workhouse is unknown but Mary’s death certificate states that she was 17 months old when she died there on 22nd April 1872 from Pertussis, the medical term for whooping cough, and Marasmus, a severe form of malnutrition and wasting, which frequently occurred in young children following severe, prolonged infections like whooping cough.

Mary, daughter of Ann Moran, death certificate

The workhouse discharge ledger just blandly stated “Mary Moran, an infant, Dead“, and four days after her passing, her small body was taken by train to be buried in a consecrated common grave in the Brookwood Cemetery in Woking, Surrey. Whether Ann or any of her family went with her is unknown.

Ann discharged herself from the workhouse on 17th June 1872 but to where is unknown. Presumably, without a child now to care for, she found work as a laundress and for the next eighteen months was able to support herself. How Ann had injured her arm and shoulder is unknown, but on 15th September 1873 she was admitted for medical care into the Westminster Union Workhouse Infirmary where she stayed for 43 days before being discharged on 28th October.

Hopefully, for a few years, Ann had somewhere to live and a wage to live on as the next workhouse record found was not until 22nd January 1881 when Ann was admitted as distressed and ill into the Holborn Union Workhouse in Shepherdess Walk, St Leonard Shoreditch.

The Holborn Settlement Papers for St Giles and St George Bloomsbury Parishes state that Ann, a 45-year-old laundress, had been born on 26th July [1836] in Connought (sic). There were apparently no known relatives for Ann but Mary A Carey, of 41 Great Windmill Road [Soho] was noted as being a respectable person that knew her.

As already mentioned, further searching revealed that 22-year-old laundress Mary Ann Carey, nee Moran, was Ann’s niece and this fact dovetailed this story together.

Ann’s current address was recorded as being 7 Arthur Street, St Giles; it was noted in the settlement papers that she had been a resident in St Giles for 10 years 6 months.

Despite this information, Ann’s whereabouts ten years earlier when the 1871 census was taken, has not been found.

At the bottom of the page, it was recorded that later Ann had been a

Discharged woman 45 from Highgate March 28 1881.

Adm. Woman 47 August 23 1881

Discharged woman 47 to Highgate August 31 1881.

Discharged woman from Highgate October 31 1881.

   Holborn Settlement Papers for St Giles and St George Bloomsbury Parishes

Ann was admitted again into the Holborn Union Workhouse on 14th March 1881 where the records show that she was a Roman Catholic servant seeking refuge. She was then transferred to the Highgate Infirmary that was situated high on a hill overlooking London. Built in the 1860s, Highgate had long, narrow wards with large, opposing windows to maximize fresh air and natural light and offered cleaner air from the suffocating, soot-choked smog of central London. As noted above, Ann was in and out of the Holborn Union Workhouse and Highgate until the end of 1881.

On 8th March 1882, Ann’s case was entered into the Shoreditch Orders of Removal ledger. It recorded that on the 12th May 1881 Ann, a pauper lunatic, had been found and brought in from the parish of St Leonard Shoreditch by William George Judge, the relieving officer. J. L. Hanney Esquire, one of the Metropolitan Police Magistrates, duly made an order that Ann would be sent that day to the Colney Hatch Asylum.

The St Leonards Shoreditch Orders of Removal ledger recorded that on 8th June 1882, Ann, “a lunatic”, was to be removed to County. On 16th June 1882 a settlement of £14-19s-10d Maintenance Asylum Duty Grant was paid to take care of Ann.

Although several females with the initials ‘A M’ were found listed in Colney Hatch Asylum in the 1891 census, I was unable to pinpoint Ann, who would have been around 54 years of age.

A year after the 1891 census was taken, Ann was admitted on 15th March 1892 into the Cane Hill Asylum in Coulsdon, Surrey. She stayed there until she was moved on 1st December 1897 to the County Asylum in Hatton, Warwickshire.

The 1901 census was taken on the evening of 31st March. Ann, recorded as Moran A, was still a patient in the County Asylum, Hatton, Warwickshire. The records show she was Single and had worked as a Servant.

Later that year on 7th October, Ann was moved to the West Sussex County Asylum which had opened in 1897. This asylum later became known as Graylingwell Hospital. Ann only stayed there for eight months before being discharged to the care of Horton Asylum in Epsom, Surrey, on 19th June 1902.

Ann was a patient in the Horton Asylum for only eighteen months before she died from heart disease on 10th December 1903. Her death certificate states that she was aged 62 and had been a Domestic Servant of Shoreditch Infirmary.

Ann Moran’s death certificate

Ann’s body was buried in grave 342 on 14th December 1903 in the Horton Estate Cemetery, Epsom.