Louis MAGISTRATI
Luigi/Louis Joseph Magistrelli
1854 – 1904
According to Louis’ daughter’s engagement announcement in a Canadian newspaper in 1916, her late father was Luigi Magistrelli who had been born in Magenta, Milano, Lombardy, Italy. The town of Magenta sits right on the outskirts of Milan.
According to his marriage certificate, Luigi’s father was Francis Joseph [Francesco Giuseppe] Magistrelli who had been a hotel keeper. Luigi likely grew up in a bustling Lombardian inn or transit hotel, a perfect springboard for a young chef who eventually brought his culinary talents all the way to England c1885.
The 1891 UK census was taken on the evening of 5th April. That night 37-year-old Luigi was recorded as being a cook who was lodging with Carlo and Annie Brassi at 1 Upper Marylebone Street, St Marylebone, London. Carlo was an Italian manager of a local restaurant, and it would seem likely that Luigi worked there as his cook.
In May 1892 there was a raid on a common betting house known as The Italian Club in Dean Street, Soho.
The club proprietor, club manager and a waiter were all charged with keeping, using, and having the care and management of the establishment.
Also charged with using the illegal gambling house were thirty-three foreign nationals, mostly Italians, one of whom was Louis Magistrelli, a cook of Newman Street.
All thirty-three were released on bail and later bound over not to offend again.
Luigi continued to use the name Louis in day-to-day English life and moved to Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, where he met Caroline Mary Ann Minson. Caroline already had an illegitimate 4-year-old daughter named Agnes Elizabeth Minson when she gave birth on 29th May 1893 to Louis’ daughter, who was registered as Eleanor (Nora) Augusta Magistrelli.
On 29th July 1894 their wedding banns were read in St Peters Church, Leckhampton. Louis was aged 39 when he married 25-year-old spinster Caroline on 5th August. Their marriage certificate below informs us that Louis’ deceased father was Francis Joseph Magistrelli, who had been a hotel keeper, and Caroline’s deceased father was John Baker Minson who had been a traveller. Caroline’s mother Caroline Carroll and brother Thomas Minson were their witnesses.
The Magistrelli family was living at 1 Bella Vue Place, a small terrace of Georgian homes located in Cheltenham’s upper High Street, when Caroline gave birth at home to their next daughter, Rosetta Caroline Alice, on 14th September 1894.
Her birth certificate records that her father’s full name was Louis Joseph Magistrelli who was at this time working as a professional chef. This could have been at the near-by Belle Vue Hotel (later known as the Irving Hotel) on the High Street.
Unfortunately, on 16th November 1894, The Citizen newspaper reported that Louis had accumulated debts and had applied for an administration order. His debts amounted to £32 11s 8d [which equates to about £5,496.65 today] and although he had hoped to pay this in full, he was now apparently without a job.
To help with lack of funds, on 24th January 1895 Caroline placed an advertisement for her Domestic Agency in The Gloucestershire Echo.
Fortunately, Louis had also found employment as on 26th January 1895 the Cheltenham Chronicle and Gloucestershire Graphic published the following news:
“Thursday – Before His Honour Judge Becher Elliott.
In the case of Louis Magistrelli, chef, his Honour granted an administration order for payment of his debts in full by instalments of 10s. a month. Mr Lewis appeared for applicant, and Mr Heath opposed on behalf of creditors. It was stated that Mr Magistrelli had obtained a permanent situation at £2 a week.”
From later newspaper accounts, it appears that he never did repay this debt before his death in 1904, and it was dismissed in 1910.
Louis and his family moved to live in his mother-in-law’s home at 40 Commercial Road, Herefordshire where on 29th December 1895, their sixteen-month-old daughter Rosetta died from acute laryngitis. Acute laryngitis in the Victorian era was a swift and terrifying respiratory illness for toddlers, often linked to secondary infections like croup or diphtheria during the cold winter months. Without modern antibiotics it was frequently fatal. Her grandmother Caroline Carroll, who was present at her granddaughter’s death, registered the fact on New Years Eve. Located near the Hereford railway station, Commercial Road was a major commercial thoroughfare lined with busy coaching inns, and hotels such as the Kerry Arms Hotel. Hopefully it was in one of these establishments that Louis had found employment.
Caroline gave birth to another daughter, Bertha Annie, on 12th July 1897, at 62 Chandos Street, a pre-1900 Victorian mid-terrace brick house located in the Whitecross area of Hereford. Louis was recorded as still working as a chef on her birth certificate.
Sometime over the next three years Louis moved to Birmingham, but it is not known if his family went with him. In 1900, Louis appeared in the Birmingham Court charged with stealing a spoon from Thomas Breley. He was fined 10 shillings or 14 days imprisonment.
The following year, when the 1901 census was taken on the evening of 31st March, 33-year-old Caroline was living with her mother at 76 Chandos Street. She was working from home as a dressmaker to support herself and her daughters Agnes aged 13, Nora aged 6, and Bertha aged 3. Louis was not with his family and his whereabouts is uncertain, but there was a 48-year-old patient recorded just by his initials ‘LM’, a cook, with his birthplace recorded as “unable to ascertain”, living in the Fareham County Lunatic Asylum. Also recorded was the word “Imbecile”. Was this Louis?
Whether it was him or not, on the night of 4th March 1902 a desperate Louis found himself back in London. He had no home left, no family to turn to, and nowhere else to walk. As he stood on the walkway of the Chelsea Embankment, he climbed the ledge and prepared to jump into the River Thames. Fortunately, Police Constable 387 of the ‘B’ Division was on his designated beat along the river wall—a stretch notorious for desperate souls. Catching sight of Louis, the constable hauled him back over the stone parapet, and safely onto the pavement.
At this time, attempting to take one’s own life was a criminal offense so PC 387 arrested Louis on the spot and escorted him to the Chelsea Workhouse on Britten Street. Because of his mental state, Louis was admitted directly into the workhouse infirmary’s observation ward.
The following day, Louis was admitted “from infirmary. Lunatic?” into the Britten Street Workhouse. The admission ledger recorded that he was born in 1854, was a cook, and a Roman Catholic.
For two weeks, Louis remained under the close watch of the parish doctors. As a cook with no remaining local ties, the parish authorities tried to figure out who would pay for his care, marking his file simply as a “County Case.”
On 18th March 1902, Edmund d’Eyncourt Esq., the presiding police magistrate, reviewed the stark details of the Embankment rescue as presented by the police. Looking at the broken man before him, the magistrate saw a patient, not a criminal. Rather than sending Louis to prison, d’Eyncourt signed a formal Justice’s Order declaring Louis to be of unsound mind.
The very next morning, on 19th March 1902, Louis was transported to the newly opened Horton Asylum in Epsom. On 1st July 1902 questions were asked by the Medical Superintendent of Horton Asylum:
Question
“Has this patient sufficiently recovered mentally to be able to give any account of himself?”
Reply
“The patient is not improving but becoming more demented and but little reliance can be put on what he says, his memory being impaired.”
There was also a note made that Louis had been “An Italian who has been in England for 17 Years”.
There was a note made that on 14th October 1903 he was “Trans on bounty” (Transferred on Bounty) meaning that he was discharged under a boarding-out allowance (often called a “bounty”) paid to a relative or a designated guardian in the community to help cover the costs of their maintenance and care outside the institution. What the outcome of this was is unknown but Louis was aged 50 when he died in the Horton Asylum on 6th May 1904; his body was buried in grave 459 on 11th May in the Horton Estate Cemetery.
And what of Caroline and their daughters?
While Louis was still alive and in the care of the asylum, Caroline declared herself to be a widow and on 31st October 1903 in St Saviour’s Church Maida Vale, made a bigamist marriage to Charles Hamilton Wood. One of their witnesses was Caroline’s mother.
Charles had been born in Edgbaston, Warwickshire, and was a clerk who lived in London but had property in Birmingham. No further records have been found for him.
The couple made their home in Berkshire and on 10th April 1905 Caroline gave birth to another daughter who she named Caroline Grace Wood. Three years later Caroline’s mother died.
When the 1911 census was taken on the evening of 2nd April, 42-year-old Caroline was living at 27 Crane Wharf, Kings Road, Reading, Berkshire. With her were her daughters Agnes Minson Magistrelli aged 22, Bertha Magistrelli aged 12, and Caroline Wood aged 5. Caroline’s husband Charles was not at home that night, but it was noted that Caroline was now the head of the family and that she had been married for eight years, and that her occupation was a Sewing Machinist – Dress Making. 17-year-old daughter Eleanor Magistrelli’s details had also been added but crossed out as she was away working in Reading as an Assistant To Drapery. Eleanor never married and moved to Devon where she died age 78 in 1972.
On 26th July 1911, Caroline travelled to Quebec, Canada, with only her daughters Bertha Magistrelli and Caroline who was recorded as Grace Wood.
The Province newspaper in Vancouver, British Columbia, published the following on 26th July 1916:
“Mrs Charles Hamilton Wood, 911 Eighteenth avenue west, announces the engagement of her daughter of the late Luigi Magistrelli of Magenta, Italy, to William John Cecil, only son of Mr & Mrs W A Cleave of Stonehouse, Plymouth, England. The wedding will take place in the autumn”.
The couple married on 5th October 1916 but were divorced by 1920. Bertha married William John Mott in California on 17th January 1925. She died in San Mateo, California, USA on 18th July 1968.
The 1921 Census of Canada recorded that Caroline, and her daughter Grace were living in Cascade, Yale, British Columbia, Canada. By 1931 they were living at 1878 Alberni Street, Vancouver. Also living there was Grace’s illegitimate 4-year-old son, Ray Maurice Charles Wood.
Caroline was aged 79 when she died in 1947.
Grace married George Rossilei Raggett in 1955 and died in 1980.