My previous article briefly focused on George Hearson, one of the three men hanged in 1832 for allegedly taking part in the Nottingham riots following the rejection of the Reform Bill by the House of Lords. At the time, I found no conclusive evidence for his parentage, but I hate loose ends so I've examined more evidence and want to make a good case for who they were.
I had criticised the few online trees where I had seen George Hearson because they were un-sourced, and because the details looked suspect.
They declared George's parents to be Thomas Hearson and
William, 1792/3 (Southwell) –
Mary, 1797 (Arnold) –
Jane, 9 Nov 1802 (Arnold) –
Margaret, Jul 1804 (Arnold) –
George, 1810 – 1 Feb 1832 (Nottingham)
John, 12 Aug 1814 (Radford) – 1880 (Nottingham)
The problems here include:
Let's start by assuming that Thomas Hearson and Frances King really were George's parents. They were married on 12 May 1793 at Arnold St. Mary.
The trick to finding all the alternative combinations in a clean sweep is to use wildcards, which in the case of the NottsFHS databases are executed painfully slowly due to software design issues. The following baptisms can all be linked to this couple:
Baptism | Given name | Parents | Occupation | Abode | Parish |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
9 Feb 1794 | Thomas | Thos.& Fanny | Arnold St Mary | ||
28 Sep 1795 | William | Thomas & Fanny | Arnold St Mary | ||
12 Nov 1797 | Mary | Thomas & Frances | Arnold St Mary | ||
13 Jul 1800 | Thomas | Thomas & Frances | Arnold St Mary | ||
9 Nov 1802 | Jane | Thos. & Frances | Arnold St Mary | ||
26 Jul 1804 | Margaret | Thos. & Frances | Arnold St Mary | ||
21 Aug 1806 | John | Thos. & Frances | Arnold St Mary | ||
1 Sep 1807 | Sarah | Thos. & Frances | Arnold St Mary | ||
1 Mar 1812 | Frances | Thomas & Frances | Radford St Peter | ||
28 Apr 1816 | Jane | Thomas & Fanny | FWK | Radford | Radford St Peter |
15 Aug 1819 | Henry | Thomas & Frances | FWK | Radford | Radford St Peter |
14 May 1821 | Mary Ann | Thomas & Frances | FWK | Parliament St | Nottingham St Mary |
So how do we know these are for the same couple? Well, there is continuity with the date of the wedding, with the parish of the wedding, with the sequencing of the baptisms, with a geographical progression from Arnold to the Nottingham town centre, and with the end of Frances's child-bearing years. Also, where there is an occupation, it is a consistent one; FWK is a Frame Work Knitter. Note that this occupation is also consistent with the hosiery occupations mentioned in the previous article.
Note that we now have an entry consistent with what we know of George's brother, Thomas, but still no George.
Another thing to note is that the name of the last child (Mary Ann) was also used by George and Charlotte for their short-lived and only daughter, and by Thomas and Harriet for their daughter — not proof, but indirect evidence.
The next step is to look at each of those parishes for children who died prematurely. These are typically harder to identify since fewer details are available for the correlation.
Burial | Given name | Abode | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
20 Jan 1799 | Thomas | Arnold | Son of Thomas & Fanny |
12 Feb 1805 | Jane | Arnold | Dau of Thos. & Frances |
31 Aug 1806 | John | Arnold | Son of Thos. & Frances |
15 Mar 1809 | William | Arnold | Son of Tho. & Frances |
This parish had annotated the relevant entries which made them much easier to confirm.
Burial | Given name | Abode | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
14 Feb 1820 | Henry | Radford | Aged 9 months |
Burial | Given name | Abode | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
19 Oct 1819 | Mary | Radford | Aged 23 |
14 Jan 1824 | Mary Ann | Aged 2 | |
10 Apr 1836 | Thomas | Charlotte St | Aged 36 |
There is no doubt that this is one family, with the exception of the final Thomas entry (George's brother), but without an entry for George (or some reason why one is not present) then we haven't shown that it's George's family.
Note that Stone Court was between Dove Yard and Stanley's Passage, on the north side of Parliament Street, only 250 yards to the west of Mount East Street. Hence, there's a connection between this family and both of the brothers George and Thomas through their geographical proximity.
If we combine these baptisms and burials, and match-up the respective entries, then we can see that there was a high degree of mortality in the family.
Given name | Baptism | Burial | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Thomas | 9 Feb 1794 | Arnold St Mary | 20 Jan 1799 | Arnold St Mary |
William | 28 Sep 1795 | Arnold St Mary | 15 Mar 1809 | Arnold St Mary |
Mary | 12 Nov 1797 | Arnold St Mary | 19 Oct 1819 | Nottingham St Mary |
Thomas | 13 Jul 1800 | Arnold St Mary | 10 Apr 1836 | Nottingham St Mary |
Jane | 9 Nov 1802 | Arnold St Mary | 12 Feb 1805 | Arnold St Mary |
Margaret | 26 Jul 1804 | Arnold St Mary | ||
John | 21 Aug 1806 | Arnold St Mary | 31 Aug 1806 | Arnold St Mary |
Sarah | 1 Sep 1807 | Arnold St Mary | ||
George | [c1809] | 6 Feb 1832 | Nottingham St Mary | |
Frances | 1 Mar 1812 | Radford St Peter | ||
Jane | 28 Apr 1816 | Radford St Peter | ||
Henry | 15 Aug 1819 | Radford St Peter | 14 Feb 1820 | Radford St Peter |
Mary Ann | 14 May 1821 | Nottingham St Mary | 4 Jan 1824 | Nottingham St Mary |
Note that William was not born in Southwell (as suggested in online trees), and he was not born before his parents' marriage. He was baptised in the Arnold St. Mary parish, died aged 14, and was buried in the same parish. This may upset the owners of those trees as it probably means that they're not related to George Hearson at all.
We can see that only four children are unaccounted for: Margaret, Sarah, Frances, and Jane — all daughters. Also, although we have no entry for George, his estimated date of birth/baptism fits perfectly into the sequence.
Margaret married John Metheringham on 12 Oct 1822 at Nottingham St. Mary,
This leaves just Sarah and Jane, and so we might expect to see them staying with their mother in the 1841 census. Well, they were there, but under the surname "Earson" (Nottingham is renowned for dropping its aitches).
Name | Sex | Age | Birth year | Occupation | Place of birth |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Frances | F | 65 | 1776 | Wid[ow] | Nottinghamshire |
Sarah | F | 30 | 1811 | Nottinghamshire | |
Jane | F | 25 | 1816 | Nottinghamshire |
Now we're getting somewhere because Barker Gate was not only the last resting place of George, but it was also the address of Thomas's daughter, Mary Ann, when she died in 1851. In fact, Rice Place was just over the wall from George's burial ground. This provides the link between Frances, George, and the Thomas who was the brother of George.
We can now determine that Frances died aged 73, and was buried on 5 Mar 1848 at Nottingham St. Mary,
The 1841 census indicates that her husband, Thomas, had died before then (i.e. before 6 Jun 1841). The previous article presented evidence that George's father died almost a year before his own death (i.e. in 1831). The best candidate for this is the Thomas of Nottingham who died aged 65 and was buried at Arnold St. Mary on 10 Apr 1831,
In the previous article, I had established that George's brother, Thomas, of Charlotte Street, had died aged 36, and was buried on 10 Apr 1836 at St. Mary. There was no obvious record of his widow's burial in that parish, or in any other, and so I wanted to establish why. I had only tracked his widow, Harriet, to the 1851 census, but it wasn't hard to find her in the 1861 census:
Name | Role | Status | Sex | Age | Birth year | Occupation | Place of birth |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Harriett | Head | Widow | F | 58 | 1803 | Lace Mender | Lenton, Nottinghamshire |
Harriett | Daughter | Single | F | 37 | 1824 | ditto | St Mary, Nottingham |
There was a suggestion in the GRO index of civil registrations that Harriet had died late in 1861, not long after the above census. The reason why her burial was not in any parish registers was that she was buried in Nottingham's privately-run General Cemetery. The following is a list of people interred in the same plot:
Name | Burial | Death |
---|---|---|
Annie Clarke | 03 Jun 1915 | Unrecorded |
James A. Dicks | 11 Jun 1913 | Unrecorded |
John Toone | 20 Feb 1870 | Unrecorded |
Harriet Hearson | 11 Nov 1861 | 08 Nov 1861 |
Frank Hearson | 02 Jul 1861 | 29 Jun 1861 |
Ann Toone | 25 Jan 1855 | 22 Jan 1855 |
This cemetery was very close to the parish of Lenton, where Harriet was born. The Frank Hearson is currently unidentified, but note the surname Toone. In the previous article, I indicated that one of the sons of Thomas/Harriet, John Thomas Hearson, married a Mary Ann Toone in 1849, thus suggesting a strong family connection with this burial plot.
As a final note, I came across an 1829 report in the London Gazette that Thomas's work as a commission agent ran into trouble, and that he became insolvent: "
The Nottingham Castle Museum currently has a Riot Gallery that exhibits details and artefacts associated with the 1831 riots and the 1832 executions. One of these is a handbill or pamphlet that was published shortly after the executions, selling for twopence (two pence, pronounced tuppence), and which included a copy of Hearson's final letter to his wife and mother. The handbill is undated but it is likely that the newspaper versions of his letter were derivatives of this copy, and that would place its publication before 10 Feb 1832. Both the museum and Richard Gaunt — Associate Professor in the history department of Nottingham University — have been kind enough to share images of this with me, and allow me to present it in this article.
At the bottom of the image of the burning castle, there's a barely-legible inscription of "
The previous article mentioned that George was involved in bare-knuckle boxing using the name "Curley Hearson", and a number of newspaper
reports were found that placed these bouts between 1828 and 1831.
There are undeniable links that indicate George was the son of Thomas and Frances Hearson, and no conflicting evidence, but what we do not have is either a baptism or a burial record.
We know that the family moved from the parish of Arnold St. Mary to Radford St. Peter between March 1809 and March 1812, and then to Nottingham St. Mary around 1820; however, Radford St. Peter was demolished in 1811 and rebuilt in 1812.
Although Hearson was born in Nottingham, Beck was from Wollaton, and Armstrong from Pleasely, near Mansfield. Beck's funeral was recorded on 2 Feb 1832 at Wollaton St. Leonard (in a coffin was provided by Lord Middleton of Wollaton Hall
A check of the original registers confirmed that there were no misspellings, erasures, or missing entries (as when a page is torn out).
Not all of Hearson's funeral requests, as expressed in his letter, were complied with:
Funeral of George Hearson -- It was the request of Geo. Hearson that his body should remain till Sunday, the 5th of February, namely, four days after his execution. It was also his request it will be perceived by the letter in the upper column, that laurel should be worn on the breasts of those who followed him, in addition to white ribbons. This request could not be complied with, owing to the convulsed state of the town, and the multitude which it was likely to congregate. The order of the Sheriff, therefore, was that the body should not be interred on Sunday, but must be consigned to its mother earth before 12 o'clock on Monday. This peremptory order was complied with, and accordingly, at 25 minutes past 11, the procession moved towards the burial-ground of St. Mary's Church, in Barker-gate, where the remains of this unfortunate young man was interred, in the presence of at least 15,000 spectators, who all deplored the cause of his premature death. His followers and bearers were dressed most respectably, and the solemn scene was one that will never be forgotten in Nottingham.
Also, one of the funeral aspects that I previously reported was later retracted by the newspaper:
We are requested to state that "the choir of singers" belonging to the Wesleyan Methodists was not present at Hearson's funeral, as erroneously stated in our last; -- and the hymn sung on that occasion was without the concurrence of the Rev. R. Pilter, who (with the Rev. T. Harris) left the ground immediately after he had closed his address.
Robert Pilter (born in Sunderland, 4 Jan 1784) and Thomas Harris (born Morton-Corbet, Salop, 30 May 1791) were both preachers in the Wesleyan Methodist Church. We can see that neither George nor his parents were of this church given their Church-of-England parishes, and hence my previous suggestion of this being cause for the missing records does not hold water.
The Wesleyan ministers were providing more comfort to all the condemned men than their respective parish ministers:
After the condemnation of the five unhappy men, several gentlemen of the Wesleyan Methodist persuasion were assiduously kind, in endeavouring the impart religious instruction, and to prepare them, so far as the aid of prayers and human agency can do, for the awful change they were about to undergo.
Although from 1752, the bodies of executed murderers were not returned to their relatives for burial, and the government did not want their bodies to have a full funeral or be buried in consecrated ground, for other crimes (up to 1832) the body could be claimed by friends or relatives for burial, which could then take place in consecrated ground. The Anatomy Act of August 1832 (very close date) removed dissection from the statute book, but it also directed that the bodies of all executed criminals belonged to the Crown and were then to be buried in the prison grounds in unmarked graves.
My conclusion, therefore, is that the parish of St. Mary deliberately failed to record the interment of both Armstrong and Hearson, despite the huge public show of sympathy for them.
It is also my belief is that there was some government influence in this matter. The government were insistent on having their executions, no matter how weak or suspect the evidence, since they needed to set an example; they needed a deterrent against any such rebellious acts in the future.