William Godwin 1836–1899 and Martha Burch 1836–1938
This blog is about William, Martha and their children but I have also included some information about William’s brothers and sisters to give context to his life. The information about his siblings is written in italics.
William was born in the village of Emery Down, Minstead in the New Forest, in 1836, the son of an agricultural labourer called James Godwin and his wife Elizabeth Blake*1. William was the second of their ten children and the family had been established in Minstead for several generations. There was no compulsory register of births in England until 1837 and so neither William nor Martha have their births registered.
Martha was born fifteen miles away in West End in the parish of South Stoneham, she was the daughter of a tailor called Joseph Burch and his wife Maria Jones. Martha was the youngest of their three children (that I have been able to trace) and she was born on December the 5th 1836 and baptised on the 15th of January the following year in South Stoneham.
1841 census
When the 1841 census was recorded William and his family were living in Minstead in the Tything (or subdivision) of Cadnam. He was five years old and his father was working as an agricultural labourer. He had three siblings, John , George and Ann.
In 1841 Martha was four years old, she lived with her parents and two sisters Eliza and Ellen in West End, South Stoneham in the Tything of Shamblehurst.
When the 1841 census was recorded both sets of William’s grandparents were living in Minstead.
Two years later in 1843 Martha’s sister Ellen died aged eight and after the 1841 census there was no mention of Elisa so I have assumed that both girls died leaving Martha as the only remaining child.
1851 census
In 1851 Martha’s parents were still living in West End, her father was working as a tailor but Martha was sixteen and had left home to work as a house servant in the home of John Barnes, a labourer who lived in Bitterne three miles away.
In 1851 William was fourteen and living with his parents and seven siblings in Minstead, his father and older brother John were working as agricultural labourers.
The 1851 census was the last document that I can find for William’s older brother John.
Six years after the census was taken, William’s grandfather John Godwin died in Minstead aged seventy five.
In the same year the first of William’s siblings to get married was his sister Mary who married a local man called William Witherington.
In 1858 both of William’s grandparents on his mother’s side, Edward and Sarah Blake died in the workhouse. In the 1851 census Edward had been living in Emery Down and had been described as a deaf pauper who had worked as a shoemaker.
In a newspaper article from the Southern Daily Echo on the 22nd December 1933 Martha talked about how as a maid she had travelled all over Britain with her mistress working long hours using the sewing skills that she had learnt from her father. She accompanied her mistress to France once but her father didn’t approve and ordered her to come home.
In 1860 on the 8th of October William and Martha got married,William was twenty four and Martha was twenty three. Martha was living at West End and William at 22 Chapel Street and the witnesses were Martha’s parents Joseph and Maria. William’s father was recorded on the certificate as working as a carrier and Martha’s was a tailor.
William and Martha had their first child, Kate Edith Godwin six months later in Moorgreen, West End, she was baptised on the 31st March 1861 in Eling.
1861 census
In the 1861 census the couple were living at Lopperwood House in Eling and both working for a Southampton banker called Henry Pearce. William was a footman, Martha was a housemaid and they were living in the coachman’s house with their baby daughter.
In 1861 William’s parents were still living in Emery Down with six of their children ranging in age from eighteen to three years old, three of William’s maternal uncles, Moses, George and Aaron Blake were living in the houses around them. Martha’s parents were in South Stoneham still living in West End.
William’s sister Mary and her family were in Lyndhurst in 1861 at Annesley Bank and his brother Charles was a lodger in Stony Cross, Minstead.
Later in 1861 William’s brother Charles got married, his wife was Ellen Holes and their mothers were friends. The marriage was in trouble by 1865 when William’s mother Elizabeth Godwin was in court accused of fighting Ellen’s mother over Ellen’s behaviour towards Charles.
On the 19th of May 1883 Charles (of Pike’s Hill, Lyndhurst) put an announcement in the Hampshire Advertiser saying that he was no longer responsible for Ellen’s debts.
In 1862 William and Martha had their second child, he was a boy called William Frank Collis Godwin and he was baptised in Eling on the 23rd of March.
Martha decided that she wouldn’t follow her husband around in his work as a butler and so she settled in Bitterne with their children and earned her living by sewing.
In 1863 William’s grandmother Mary Godwin died. She was eighty three and had been living with her son George since her husband’s death.
In 1864 William’s sister Sarah married Henry Witherington, the brother of Mary’s husband.
In 1865 William and Martha had a second daughter called Alice Louisa Godwin, she was born in Eling.
The following year William’s mother died aged fifty five leaving behind eight children, the youngest was ten years old. Three years after this his father remarried, his second wife was a widow who was twenty years younger than him called Eliza Halliday (nee Johnson). She had three children from her first marriage, Kezia, Rose Ellen and Sarah and she and James then had a further three children together, Frederick, George and Albert bringing the total of children in the combined family to sixteen ranging over forty four years.*2.
In 1867 Martha’s father died, he was sixty one years old and her widowed mother remained in West End and took in laundry to make a living.
In the same year William’s sister Martha married a labourer called Thomas Whitehorn in Lyndhurst and they set up home in Emery Down.
In 1868 William and Martha had their fourth child, a son called Charles Ernest Godwin.
1871 census
When the 1871 census was recorded William was away from home, Martha was working as a dressmaker and living in Calmore near Lopperwood with their four children. I can’t find William on the UK census for 1871.
A few days after the census was recorded their ten year old daughter Kate died of scarlatina.
In 1871 William’s father and his second wife were living in Emery Down with five children and Martha’s mother was living in West End working as a laundress.
William’s youngest sister Elizabeth aged fourteen was a servant in Portsea. Charles was living in Emery Down and George was in Cadnam lodging with the family of a charcoal burner. Mary was in Canford, Dorset and James, Sarah, Martha and Henry were all in Lyndhurst. This is the last record that I can find for Elizabeth.
Over the next two years, two of William’s brothers married two of their step sisters. Just after the 1871 census James married Kezia Halliday, Kezia had been in the workhouse in Eling when the census was taken with her six month old baby daughter Ellen. The baby’s surname was registered as Halliday but after Kezia and James got married, Ellen’s surname was changed to Godwin so I am assuming that she was James’s natural daughter.
Then in 1872 Henry married Rose Ellen Halliday.
In 1872 after a four year gap William and Martha had a fifth child, a daughter called Bessie Maria Godwin.
In 1875 William’s brother George married Mary Cowen in London. Their first child was born in Lyndhurst so they must have moved out of London soon after they married.
In 1875 William and Martha had their sixth child, a son called Sydney Walter Burch Godwin and two years later they had another son called Bertram Freeman Godwin but he only lived for four and a half months. Bertram died in South Stoneham in West End and Martha’s mother was present at the death which makes me think that Martha and her sick child had returned home for help.
1881 census
In 1881 Martha was once again on her own with the children, now working as a tailoress and living in New Road, South Stoneham.
William was living and working at 45 Gloucester Square, London as a butler for a widow called Ann Samson .
Charles was in Pike’s Hill, James was in South Stoneham and Martha was in Emery Down. George was living in Christchurch, Sarah was in Lyndhurst and William’s step sister Sarah Jane Halliday was a cook in a station hotel in Bishops Waltham. Mary wasn’t on any 1881 census that I can find but between 1871 and 1883 her husband died and in 1883 she married a widower called Charles Bower who lived in Dorset.
In 1881 William’s father and step mother were in the village of Bishopstoke with their three sons and Eliza’s daughter Rose who had returned home without William’s son Henry and who was described as a widow.
If Henry was dead I can’t find any trace of this or anything about his life in any subsequent documents, but in 1882 Rose and a man called Charles Kirby left Hampshire with their baby son and moved to Staffordshire where they settled and had a family of six children as a married couple. When Charles was killed in an accident in 1911 the courts announced that the name of Rose and her children was Godwin (aka Goodwin) and that all court records should be amended. I assume from this that she and Charles weren’t married and that Rose hadn’t been widowed or divorced which is why they moved away from Hampshire and people who knew them. Rose and her children continued to use the surname Kirby.
In 1883 William and Martha completed their family with a son called Neville Clifford Godwin (aka Clifford) who was born in West End. Their oldest surviving child William Frank Collis married Melinda Green the following year and so William and Martha celebrated the marriage of one of their children and a new baby for themselves within twelve months. William Frank Collis and Melinda had their first child a few months after their wedding and went on to have a family of seven children.
In 1885 William’s step sister Sarah Halliday had a baby girl called Helen. Sarah wasn’t married but three years later she married Arthur Broom and they moved with the baby to the Isle of White where they ran a pub. Helen always retained her mother’s surname of Halliday and the couple didn’t have any further children.
In 1886 William’s father died aged seventy five, his youngest child was nine years old and his eldest was fifty three.
In 1890 William and Martha’s son Charles Ernest married Jane Conway the daughter of a carpenter from Titchfield and they went on to have seven children.
1891 census
In 1891 Martha was fifty four years old and living in Albert Terrace, South Stoneham with three of her children, Bessie, Sidney (who was now working as a steward in the Merchant service) and Clifford but William was working as the butler for a Justice of the Peace called William Talbot Agar who lived at Millford House, Lymington.
Some time after this census Martha took on a little shop in Red Lion Cut in Bitterne, it had been a baker’s shop and Martha had no prior knowledge of running a business but she started with the daily rounds for two local newspapers and built it up into a general newsagent and local shop that she managed until she was ninety nine years old.
In 1891 William’s brother George was living in Minstead, Sarah and Charles were in Lyndhurst, Martha was in Emery Down and James was in Kinson, Dorset.
In 1891 William’s step mother Eliza was living with two of her sons George and Albert in Windsor Road, Totton working as a charwoman.
The following year Eliza died aged sixty one. Two years later her daughter Kezia died aged forty leaving William’s brother James a widower with six children.
William and Martha’s son William Frank Collis was a cab driver in the 1891 census, he and Melinda were living in Hound, Hampshire with their four children. Charles Ernest was living in Titchfield with his wife and baby son working as a baker but I can’t find any documents for Martha and William’s daughter Alice Louisa in this census.
In 1893 William and Martha’s daughter Bessie Maria got married, her husband was Harry Small, a carpenter and joiner from South Stoneham and two years later Alice Louisa married George Mitchell, a shipwright from Portsmouth.
In about 1896 William became too ill to continue working as a butler and he returned to Bitterne to live with Martha.
In 1899 Sydney Walter Burch married Alice Helm, the daughter of the landlord of the Victoria Inn in Woolston.
Just a few months after his son’s marriage, William died following a three year illness. He was sixty three years old and the cause of death on his death certificate was Paralysis Agitans which is now better known as Parkinsons Disease.
He was buried in Bitterne Church graveyard
1901 census
In 1901 Martha was living and working in her newsagent’s shop in Bitterne, her son Clifford was the only one of her children still at home, he was seventeen years old and working as a grocer’s apprentice.
Charles Ernest was still in Fareham working as a baker, William Frank Collis and Melinda were in South Stoneham, Alice Louisa’s husband was at sea and she and their children were staying with an aunt called Sophia Amelia Tarrent (nee Long) in Portsmouth. Bessie and Harry were in Brook Road, Bitterne living near Martha and Sydney and his wife Alice were living with Alice’s widowed mother in Woolston at the Victoria Inn.
In 1901 William’s brothers Charles and James and sisters Sarah and Martha were living in Lyndhurst, George was in Minestead and Mary was with her second husband Charles Bower in Hound.
In 1901 Sydney and his wife Alice had a baby girl who died within days of her birth.
In 1907 Martha’s daughter Alice died from Transverse Myelitis, an inflamation of the spine. She was forty two years old and left two young children. Five years later her husband George married Emily Green, the younger sister of Melinda who was married toWilliam Frank Collis Godwin. When they got married in 1912 George had retired from the navy but he rejoined and in 1914 he was lost in action and his body was never recovered.
The following year in 1908 Martha’s youngest child Neville got married to the daughter of a local gardener. She was called Ethel Nelly Jones, she was twenty five when they married but only two years later she died. Following this, Neville moved back home with Martha.
In 1909 William’s brother George died age 66
1911 census
When the 1911 census was recorded Martha and Clifford were still living on the High Street in Bitterne at the Newsagent’s shop.
This was also the year when Martha’s son Sydney emigrated to Canada with Alice and their surviving child Gladys. Charles Ernest was in Bursledon with his family working as a baker and William Frank Collis was a cab proprietor living in Ordnance House, Woolston with Melinda and five children. Bessie was living in Bitterne with her husband and four children.
In 1911 William’s siblings Sarah and Charles were in Lyndhurst, Martha was in Emery Down, and Mary was in Kinson, I can’t find Mary after this but her husband died in 1921.
In 1914 William’s brother Charles died aged seventy six and his half brother George died in a boating accident aged forty two. George left a large family and there was a collection for his widow.
George was one of Williams half brothers from his father’s marriage to Eliza Halliday. The oldest of the three was Frederick, I haven’t been able to find many records about him, however it appears that the youngest, Albert Henry followed in his father’s footsteps and became a butler, travelling the world with his employer.
In 1919 William’s sister Sarah died aged seventy three.
In 1925 William Franks Collis’s wife Melinda died aged sixty one and he moved back in with his mother. He remained with her for three years before his death in 1928 aged sixty six, in a newspaper article Martha spoke about how hard it had been losing him.
Two years after losing William, Martha had to face the death of another of her children, in 1930 Charles Ernest committed suicide. He had been a baker in Lowford but following health problems he had started working as a gardener for Count Beaufort de Molyneux of High Firs House. An argument between the two men had resulted in Charles losing both his job and home on the estate, Charles left a note and threw himself down the well.
Martha appeared to be indomitable and in 1935 she appeared in several newspapers as the oldest working newsagent in the country.
Martha had a short retirement of three years but in 1938 she died aged one hundred and one. She had outlived all but three of her children, both Neville and Sydney died in 1949, Neville in Southampton and Sydney in Vancouver and Bessie lived on until 1960.
Marth was buried with William in Bitterne church graveyard and the gravestone gave the details as follows
‘In Loving memory of William the beloved husband of Martha Godwin who died September 12th 1899 aged 63 years also Martha the beloved wife of William Godwin fell asleep November 18th 1938 in her 102nd year’
Thank you to Steve Adams of the Bitterne Local History Society for all the invaluable help and information.
Thanks also to Anita Nutt, great great granddaughter of William and Martha.
- 1. The following is only a tenuous connection to the Godwin family and is really just a chance to show the picture below! Two of Elizabeth Blake’s brothers Moses and George (aka Crutie) were folk singers and George’s wife Maria was the sister of ‘Brusher Mills’ the famous snake catcher of Hampshire.
- 2. James and Eliza were married in the New Forest and their first two children together were born in Hampshire but their third was born Great Canford, Dorset. Three years after the birth they were back in Hampshire but in Bishopstoke seventeen miles away so something that happened at this time took James away from his roots.
