A mystery

[username3678]

I found a grave and wondered if anyone could give me a clue as to how to find out more about it
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/236752563/somebodies-darling

There's no name, it's just called Somebodies Darling, date of death is 28 August 1878, Maldon Essex

This obviously peaked my interest. I'm assuming that a body was found and a rich person took it upon themselves to bury them or the council did.

I’m very confused how this family could afford the headstone.
PP noted it must have been someone with money

As it says
Somebodies Darling

Im wondering if the child was abandoned or left at the church and a kindly person buried them and put up the headstone.
The word
‘Somebodies’ suggests the family were unknown when it was erected.

Sorry, and here is the Ancestry link

https://www.ancestry.co.uk/discoveryui-content/view/records?recordId=860664&collectionId=61808

Thanks @Another2Cats for the confirmation and screenshot.
What happened to her after 1914? I’d love to know.

Don't forget that there are two possible Louisa Allens who could be the mother.

I not too sure why everyone is assuming that it is this Louisa Allen that we've been talking about more recently who was the mother.

All we know about the other Louisa Allen is that in 1871 she was 15 and living at home with her parents and younger brother. The address given was Eastcroft Farm, Purleigh. The house still exists and is Grade II listed, it is on Fambridge Road, Maldon.

The next thing we know is that she is working for the Richardson sisters on High Street Maldon in 1881.

What she got up to in those ten years we have no idea about. Edith was born in July 1877 and died in Aug 1878. So that leaves three years between Edith's death and the 1881 census. The other Louisa could easily have got a job with the Richardson sisters in that time.

Given what we've since learnt about the Louisa with several convictions I'm inclined to think that maybe it was the other Louisa (who worked as a domestic servant) who may have been the mother.

Which could go some way to explaining the existence of a headstone as the other Allen’s don’t seem to have had any money for it.

Lots of interesting information to read. We can't say whether it was either Louisa, or a third unknown Louisa. However, Louisa's parents had a gravestone, so I don't think they were dirt poor.
www.findagrave.com/memorial/236751661/elizabeth-allen

Look, this is her sister's daughter.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/236754317/edith_maud_balls

So they clearly had money
Its amazing how people found money for funerals and headstones. My grandmother had a huge cross and double plot in Ireland and yet the kids left ( 7 my mum included ) didn’t have shoes or food.

I wonder whether there's any more information in the record office,such as the date the headstone was bought, or any other information that might give further clues.

That's great thank you.

I'm just going through the thread, so thank you to everyone for your contributions which I'm reading with fascination and gratitude.

@StrawberryTriflng How do you know all these people are the same Louisa? They've all got different names.

I have reproduced the whole text for the final trial which has linked her with these aliases plus @Another2Cats confirmed it in the above post.

I just saw that. Thanks

I think you mean piqued your interest.

"How do you know all these people are the same Louisa?"

The court has said that this is (or, at least, they believe that this is) the same person.

In the link I gave earlier with this attached image (below) it shows one of those earlier convictions (from 22 Oct 1912). In that case it was recorded that she had previously been convicted several times under the name of Louisa Allen.

It looks like she used multiple names at different times.

This is likely why you couldn't find any record of her getting married. I would guess that she just started living with some guy and took his name without getting married.

Back then, if you were Sarah Smith and you were living with a man named Bob Jones then eyebrows would be raised. But if you just started calling yourself Sarah Jones instead then nobody would think anything of it.

This wasn't just in the 19th century either. A relation of mine (one of my mum's aunts) married in 1926 but then they split up. She later started living with a guy sometime around 1938 - or maybe earlier - and just changed her name to his (this is documented) but they never did get married, she just took his name.

Again, a woman with a child living with a man when they had different surnames was not the done thing in the 1930s. It was just easier for her to take his name.

As ever, thank you.

I’m not ignoring the possibility of the other Louisa Allen being Edith Maria’s mother, merely pursuing the one who made several appearances in court and went to prison.
On the 1861 census, Louisa, daughter of George and Elizabeth and sibling to Mary A, Margaret, George P, all living at Wants Road, was 8 months old. This indicates she was born in August 1860: there is a record of Louisa Allen born Q3 1860 in Maldon to a mother whose maiden name was Anderson.
Court records, despite Louisa’s aliases, refer back to her being Louisa Allen. Perhaps, in the face of officialdom, her technical and legal name was used.

There is a record of death for Louisa Allen, born 1861 (not uncommon to be the following year) who died in Q4 in 1916 in Lambeth aged 55. Can anyone access more information from other sites about this please? Can this person be tied in to a birth in Q3 (August) 1860? Could this be the daughter of George and Elizabeth, sister of Margaret?

@StrawberryTriflng I looked her up on ancestry but couldn't see any link. I also looked for a grave in Lambeth but couldn't find anything, then searched London with no luck.

I've been busy researching what hard labour meant for women. I can't really find anything. It was very bad for men, they had to turn a handle thousands of times a day which could be tightened by the officers, hence the nickname 'screw.'

They had to lift cannonballs or work a treadmill as well as unknot rope. Most of these were very physically taxing and I can't imagine women doing them.

I found some information on women doing sewing for example sewing prison uniforms and other work like laundry. Although I couldn't find anything definitive.

Maybe there are some historians who would know more.

I looked into Louisa's sister Margaret who married the fishmonger. Apparently there was a Balls fishmonger on Maldon High street until relatively recently. I found a Ball fishmonger in a nearby town and am not sure if they're related.

If Margaret did well for herself, it's certainly possible that she paid for the gravestone.

I tried to find court records for North London Police Court where Louisa was tried but couldn't find anything. I also tried to find records from Holloway Prison but again no luck.

I found out that it was common for working class people to pay into a funeral insurance scheme. Apparently it was so shameful not to be able to pay for a funeral that people would go without rather than not pay the insurance.
I couldn't find out the price of a gravestone.

This is Douglas Ball fishmonger which used to be 119 High Street, Maldon.

I looked him up on ancestry and his surname was Balls. I believe this might have been Margaret's husband James' business.

@username3678 Thanks for your reply. Have you googled “Hard labour for women in Holloway Prison” as it gives some more examples of what women were required to do. Oakum was a horrible substance which caused problems with their hands.

Yes, oakum-picking was a common task imposed on women prisoners - teasing out the tar-covered strands of old rope. Nasty, dirty, painful work that made the fingers bleed. They’d probably have a certain amount to 'pick' every day.