Great Great Grandmother Lucy Vernon (nee James)

My Great Great Grandmother Lucy (1868 - 1897) was domestic servant, housewife, and mother of four.

Lucy James was born on 23rd March 1868 in Morchard Bishop, Devon, to Henry James (30/31), an agricultural labourer, and Louisa James (nee Edwards) (22), a housewife.

Lucy was the eldest of eight children (four daughters and four sons):

• Lucy  1868 - 1897 (29)
• Bessie  1869 -
• Edwin  1875 -
• Louisa  1878 -
• Emily Maude  1880 - 
• Charles  1883 -
• Francis Robert  1886 - 
• Gilbert  1889 - 

Lucy and her siblings grew up in Morchard Bishop.

In 1871, they lived at Birchenbeer Cottage, Morchard Bishop. 1871 Census:

By 1881, they had moved to Whatcombe, also in Morchard Bishop. I cannot find a place called Whatcombe in or near Morchard Bishop; however, there is a Watcombe Farm today in Morchard Bishop. Was this where Lucy and her family lived? 1881 Census:

Aged only thirteen, Lucy worked as a domestic servant.

On the 6th May 1890, Lucy (22) married Isaac 'Harry' Harwood Vernon (21), an agricultural labourer, in Kennerleigh. The young couple set up home at Turnpike Gate Cottage in Kennerleigh, near Crediton. This may not have been a match made in heaven. My father's family history research from the mid 1990s notes that Lucy's younger sister Emily "always had ill feelings towards Isaac Harwood Vernon - he was a brutal man".

1891 Census:

Lucy and Harry had three children (one daughter and three sons):

• Edith Ellen  1891 - 1971 (79)
• Walter Charles  1892 - 1965 (73)
• William John  1894 - ? (?)
• Frank  1896 - 19?? (?)

Alas Lucy was ill with pulmonary tuberculosis and passed away from the disease, aged twenty-nine, on 25th March 1897, in Kennerleigh. Before Lucy passed away, Harry either began an affair with Ellen Tonkin, which resulted in the birth of Fred Tonkin (later known as Fred Vernon) in Apr/May/Jun 1897 in the district of Crediton; or, after marring Ellen on 31st December 1897, eight months after Lucy's death, Harry adopted Fred. Time wise it seems more likely Harry was Fred's biological father. When Lucy passed away, her young children were only five - zero years old.

Whilst censuses show Edith and Walter stay with their father, William and Frank are absent. School records do show Frank attending school in Credition in the 1900s. Yet after that they seem to vanish from record. Indeed, after his birth and baptism, there is no more sign of William. They would have been babies when their mother died. Did they go to live with friends or relatives? Were they put in the workhouse? Did they pass away young and un-recorded? Were their names changed? Did they move away? All these questions and more come to mind, with little satisfactory answers.

These photographs aren't of Lucy, but show a similar 19th century young woman who alas passed away because of tuberculosis. They show how the person wastes away from the disease. "Her clothing is falling from her skeletal frame and her eyes clearly show that death is not far".

Photographs of Charlotte Bronson. The left photograph shows Charlotte as a healthy eighteen year old in 1850; the right shows Charlotte in 1856, aged only twenty-four, in the final months of her life. Might Lucy have looked similar?