Where did he go?

Following on from my snapshot into the life of my Moore ancestors, I'm following that line a bit further forward in time to tell the tale, such as I know it, of John Edward Moore, son of William in my first blog.

John was born, four years after the events at the Tollgate, in the house on Timber Hill.  He was the fourth of five children born to William and his wife, Frances Palmer.  His elder two brothers, William and Thomas, and his younger brother, Arthur, all followed their father's footsteps by becoming bakers and grocers in Melton Mowbray, but John appears to have had different ideas. 

In the 1881 census John has moved down to Wanstead in Essex and is a bookseller.  He was still following this profession when he met Lottie Fanny Cullen who, oddly enough, was the daughter of a local baker and confectioner, so maybe thoughts of home led John to the local baker's shop!

They married when Lottie was just nineteen, but the marriage was a disaster. Knowing how much his wife would have prefered to have been called Charlotte Frances, John insisted on christening their daughter Lottie May. Before the baby was a year old he left them for good.

Lottie, faced with earning a living, boarded the young child with a Quaker couple who lived at Leamington and herself went back to nursing. She nursed privately a Mrs Kitchin of Sheffield after whose death, Hannah Kitchin, her unmarried daughter, persuaded Lottie to come as companion. They set up house at Summerfield, Curbar, Derbyshire, moving in 1935 to Sylvan Cliff, Buxton where both died.

Both women were very religious and lived their religion, giving home to Belgian refugees in 1914-18 war, and later to furloughing Missionaries. They were both strong teetotallers (Lottie's brother was a drunkard and they aided his neglected family). Nina was a woman of means and both ladies travelled regularly, Nurse, as Lottie was always called, acted as housekeeper and cook.  

Nothing more is known of John Edward after he deserted Lottie, and I have tried in vain to track him down in the censuses that followed but no sign. I keep hoping that one day he will turn up, like a bad penny and tell me where he has been for the last 120 years!



Lottie Fanny Moore (nee Cullen)


I owe a great part of this story to my grandmother, Mary Beckett (nee Bell), who has recorded the story told by John and Lottie's daughter, May, who was her mother-in-law.