The Fountain family lived in Dukes Place Great Marlow from (at least) 1908 to (at least) 1913. Peter Fountain was born 1868 in Wendover Bucks to Emmanuel, a gamekeeper for Alfred De Rothschild Esq, and Charlotte. Mary Ann his wife was née Clarke and married him in 1895.
Peter appears on the 1881 census as a 12 year old plough boy. The following year his family suffered the loss of his baby brother Henry. The 16 month old died from convulsions brought on by severe whooping cough.
By 1891 Peter lived at "Dirty Bottom" Marlow Bottom and was an agricultural labourer lodging with a 62 year old widower James Clarke who was presumably a relative of his future wife. In the years prior to his marriage however he was working as a gamekeeper for Lord Carrington. As such he appeared in several court cases as a witness for the prosecution when poachers were bought to justice. That didn't seem to stop Peter taking an interest in poaching himself - he was fined in 1901 for stealing a nest of pheasant eggs from another man's land. At the time this was classed as poaching because pheasants were game birds. This didn't seem to stop Peter being employed in later years as a gamekeeper.
Mary Ann was born around 1869 just outside Marlow at Burroughs Grove. I saw an online tree that gave her parents as William and Mary however on the 1881 and 1891 censuses she was living at Burroughs Grove as the daughter of David and Mary Clarke. David was a farm labourer.
In 1908 Peter was fined for being drunk in Little Marlow. This was (at least) his second conviction for public drunkenness. (Fine 10s including costs.) By then the family had moved from Burroughs Grove to Dukes Place. Greater trouble came to the family through Mary Ann a few years later. In July 1912 she was fined £1 for stealing a pair of scissors and a hairbrush from Mrs Debbin at Prospect House. Mary Ann was not a very careful thief as after the act she went for a drink at the Horns public house just down the street from Prospect House. Multiple people in the tap room saw the stolen scissors on the floor at Mary Ann's feet and the hairbrush sticking out of her pocket. In December that year she and James Clarke (perhaps her brother) were found guilty of stealing a ferret from the garden of her Dukes Place neighbour Archibald Grainger. Again careful planning was not foremost in Mary Ann's mind. The theft occurred while another neighbour Mrs Ann Tilbury from no 2* Dukes Place was visiting Mary Ann and was thus a witness to her and James disappearing into the garden and coming back with the ferret. When suspicion began to be thrown at Mary Ann and James, Mary Ann told Mrs Tilbury not to admit to having seen them with the ferret, while James tried to get rid of the incriminating animal by offering it for free to a fellow drinker in the bar of the Railway Hotel. The original intent was to sell it. James tried to say he had found the ferret in the garden of the Carpenter's Arms around the corner from Dukes Place but the court dismissed this explanation.
In May 1913 Mary Ann was jailed for two months hard labour for stealing the hand bag of another woman on the train between Cookham and Maidenhead. Her accomplice was another Marlow woman Gladys Edwards. Inside the bag was 2 sovereigns which the women split between themselves and a gold watch and chain. Gladys kept the gold items. She sold the chain to High Street jeweller Frederick Rowe. The bag was thrown down a drain to hide the evidence. When arrested Mary Ann claimed that the bag was found by Gladys on the Maidenhead platform and having asked anyone around if it was their bag, decided to keep it when it was otherwise unclaimed.
Context for this is provided by a newspaper report that later the same year Peter was brought to court for abandoning his wife and family and thus rendering them as paupers dependent on the Parish. Poor Mary Ann may have been desperate when she stole the ferret. Her youngest child Annie was then only two years old. How much of her previous stealing had been acts of desperation caused by an uncommitted breadwinner? Peter said he left his home because it was used for "improper purposes". The Bench said there was no doubt his house was "badly conducted" but that was no excuse to leave. He was sent to prison for a month.
Four years later Peter, during WW1, was arrested in Marlow as a deserter from the army. More humiliation for Mary Ann.
Mary Ann knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of theft. When she was six her sixteen year old neighbour Sarah Green and Green's father John were jailed for breaking into the Clarke's home via a window and stealing from a box some shoes, 2 pairs stockings, a bonnet and 2 petticoats. The loot was discovered by a constable under the Green family's kitchen floorboards. Mary Ann was out with her mother at the time. Her brother William discovered the theft.
Above, Dukes Place in 2022 including the row known as Sunlight Villas/Cottages.
*numbering in Duke's Place seems to have altered since.
Related Posts:
All mentions of a person on this blog can be found on the A-Z person index in the top drop down menu - 4,000 plus individuals are mentioned here.
A short biography of another, earlier Dukes Place resident Elizabeth Keen is here.
Everyday life in old Marlow post index here
Index of posts relating to specific streets, properties etc here
Other Borroughs Grove related posts here
©Marlow Ancestors. You are very welcome to use this material for family or local history purposes with credit to this blog.
Sourced included:
Census transcriptions from microfilm. my own.
South Bucks Standard editions 18th July 1912, 11th December 1913. British Library Archives.
Bucks Herald 16th October 1875. As above.
No comments:
Post a Comment