Edith Ellen Vernon was born on 6th June 1891 in Kennerleigh, Devon, to Isaac 'Harry' Harwood Vernon (22), an agricultural labourer and farm carter, and Lucy Vernon (nee James) (23), a former domestic servant.
Edith was the eldest of four children born to Harry and Lucy (one daughter and three sons):
On 27th December 1895, Edith's younger brother William (recorded on his death certificate as John, implying his parents may have called the baby by his middle name) passed away, in Sandford. He had whooping cough, followed by a convulsive attack.
Edith's youngest brother Frank and their mother Lucy were both ill with pulmonary tuberculosis and passed away from the disease.
On 22nd February 1897, Frank passed away, aged only six months, in Langham, Kennerleigh.
One month later, their mother Lucy passed away, aged 29, on 25th March 1897, in Kennerleigh, when Edith was five years old.
Before Lucy passed away, it seemed Harry may have begun an affair with Ellen Tonkin - her son Fred Tonkin, born Apr/May/Jun 1897, was conceived before Lucy's death and Harry would later recognise him as his son. On New Year's Eve 1897, Harry and Ellen married. Before they married, Harry was described as Ellen's lodger. From this marriage, young Edith gained a step-mother and ten younger half siblings (8 half brothers and 2 half sisters):
- Frederick 'Fred' (born Tonkin, later Vernon) 1897 - 1915 (18)
- Mabel Ellen 1898 - 1994 (95)
- George 1900 - 1900 (0 - 3 months old)
- George Henry 1901 - 1973 (71)
- Ernest Isaac 1904 - 1997 (93)
- Isaac Harry (went by Harry like his father) 1906 - 1964 (58)
- William Harwood 1908 - 1972 (64)
- Florence Emily 1911 - 1993 (82)
- Sidney 'Sid' 1913 - 2004 (91)
- Percy 1915 - 2002 (86)
The fact that the family moved around mid-Devon a lot, likely as Harry sought rural work, is revealed in the children's different places of birth and their attending different schools...
Edith was born in Kennerleigh, but a year later baby Edith and her family seemed to have moved to Crediton, as her younger brother Walter was born and baptised there in 1892; however, they seemingly soon moved back to Kennerleigh, as their mother Lucy passed away there in 1897. Kennerleigh and Crediton are only five or so miles apart.
At some point, they appear to have moved from Kennerleigh, about eight miles west, to Lapford, for Edith attended school there as a young girl. By 1898, when Edith was seven, the family seem to have briefly returned to Crediton again, as there her younger half sister Mabel was born in Tolleys on 25th November, and Edith attended Crediton Hayward School for one week from 28th November. Mabel's birth certificate shows that though she was born in Crediton, her mother's residence was Shobrooke, which is two miles west of Crediton. At some point, around this time, Edith and Walter attended school in Thorverton, which is four and a bit miles east of Shobrooke.
1899 saw them move again, about four and a bit miles, this time from Thorverton to East Coombe. Whilst the family resided there, Edith and Walter attended nearby Stockleigh Pomeroy Church of England School from the October. 1900 saw them move again: that year the moved East Coombe, about three miles east, to West Bowley, Cadbury; Edith and Walter attended Cadbury School from the 12th March to the 7th September, when the family left the area.
As reported in the Tiverton Gazette (Mid-Devon Gazette) of 21st August 1900, Edith's father Harry was fined 1 shilling for neglecting to send Edith regularly to school. "The child had made 59 attendances out of a possible 89, between 4th May and 22nd June last."
In Jul/Aug/Sep 1900, when Edith was nine, her younger half brother George passed away as a very young baby - only zero to three months old. Her father and step mother would name their next born son George also, likely after their lost child.
The 1901 Census shows they had moved back to Thorverton:
At some point between 1901 and 1904, they family moved three and half miles south to Upton Pyne, for there Edith and Walter attended school for a time, before returning to Crediton in 1904. From 10th October 1904, Edith and Walter attended Crediton Hayward School, whilst the family lived at Chapel Down, Crediton. Edith's last day at the school was 3rd June 1905, for three days later she would have turned fourteen and been deemed too old to attend. Presumably from this time she either found work or helped at home, looking after her many younger siblings.
Later that same summer, Edith's younger brother Walter, aged twelve, whose character on his school report was listed as 'bad', stole a silver watch and chain from farmer Mr Daniel Butt of Burridge Farm, Chawleigh. Walter threw the watch and chain into a field, but it was soon discovered. Consequently he was sent to a industrial school for three years. Industrial school and later the army would reform his character.
Did Edith and Walter live apart from their father and step family for a time? Notable, whilst Edith and Walter attended Crediton Hayward School and their address is listed as Chapel Down in Crediton in October 1904; their younger half siblings Fred, Mabel and George began attending Sandford School from 25th June 1904, and their address is given as Priorton Mill (a mile north of Sandford, and three and a bit miles north of Crediton). These three stayed at Sandford School for three years, till the family left the area in July 1907. Also Walter appeared to be staying, neither in Crediton nor Sandford, but with their grandfather in Chawleigh in the summer of 1905, when he stole the watch.
The family moved next back to Crediton, where Fred, Mabel and George attended Credtion Hayward School, like their older half siblings had done before them. Then from February 1908, they began attending Dunsford County Primary School. By this time, the family were living at Sowton Cottage, in Dunsford, which is about nine miles south of Crediton where they last lived. They left the school only five months later, in July 1908, when they family moved again - this time, five miles east, to Holcombe Burnell, where they again attended the local school.
Around 1909, Mabel, George, Ernest and Harry attended school in Longdown (only a mile west of Holcombe Burnell where they previously attended), before the family moved about ten miles east to Hittisleigh - the children attended the school there from September 1910. At the time they lived at Beer or Beara Cottage, which was seemingly about half way between Hittisleigh and Cheriton Bishop. They were still there a year later at the time of the 1911 Census. In November 1911, the children left the school on their leaving the district.
1911 Census:
Edith's father and step family continued to move around mid Devon, but in 1911, Edith, by then a young woman, left them to marry. On 5th June 1911, Edith (20) married William Henry Moore (21), a labourer, in Drewsteignton, Devon. Edith's father acted as witness at the wedding. Edith and William don't appear to have had any children.
Edith was twenty-three, when the First World War began. Edith's younger brother Walter, younger half brother Fred, and her second husband all fought in the First World War. Sadly Fred (18) and her first husband William (about 24) passed away in the first years of the war. Young Edith soon remarried. In Oct/Nov/Dec 1915, in Honiton, Edith (24), a widow, married William Trigger (27), a male nurse at a mental hospital (or, as it was termed at the time, an asylum attendant - likely at the Devon County Mental Asylum).
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A blurry copy (unfortunately I don't have the original photograph)
of Ellen, William and their eldest daughter Phyllis, c 1918 |
The couple remained in Honiton for a few years. They married there in 1915 and their first child was born there three years later; but by 1920, they had moved to Kerswell Cottages in Kenn. Electoral registers show that a few years after that, in late 1922 or early 1923, they moved to Holly Bank in Exminster - the family remained there for some years, and can still be found at 16 Holly Bank sixteen years later in the 1939 census, though William seems to be missing from the census. Ellen 'Nellie' Trigger, William's elder sister, is however shown living with Edith and her two sons.
Edith and her second husband had four children (1 daughter and 3 sons):
- Phyllis Lucy E 1918 -
- William Henry John 1920 -
- Reginald James H 1924 -
- Cecil A E 1925 - 1928 (3)
In Apr/May/Jun 1928, when Edith was thirty-six, her youngest son, three-year-old son Cecil, sadly passed away, in Exeter. Edith's two surviving sons would have been young men during the Second World War. Did they serve in the war? If they did serve, they survived.
1939 Census:
On 13th June 1959, Edith's second husband William passed away, aged seventy-one, at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital. The cause of his death was respiratory failure and heart failure.
On 7th April 1971, Edith passed away, aged seventy-nine, at Dawlish Hospital. At the time of her death, her address was 21 Jubliee Close, Exminster. The cause of her death was a cerebral haemorrhage and hyperpiesia. Their eldest son William was the informant of both his parents' deaths.
