We know very little about the lives of Joseph Boden and Elizabeth Robb in the early years of their marriage (if we set aside for now the possibility that Elizabeth committed bigamy by marrying Edmund Vineer a year after she married Joseph). Despite my best efforts, I’ve been unable to find either Joseph or Elizabeth in the 1841 census, which was taken on 6th June, just over three months after their wedding at St Martin-in-the-Fields. It’s possible that this is because the records for the area where they would be living ten years later are missing.
Lawrence Lane can be seen on the right of this section of the map from Cross’ London Guide (1851) (via london1851.com)
The 1851 census is thus the first definite record we have for the couple after their marriage, and we can’t know for certain that they were living at the same address in the preceding years. On 30th March 1851 Joseph Boden, a 37-year-old dentist, born in Morley, Derbyshire, and his Yorkshire-born wife Elizabeth, aged 30, were living in Lawrence Lane, just off Cheapside, in the parish of St Mary-le-Bow in the City of London. Living with them is 18-year-old house servant Elizabeth Earl, originally from the parish of St Pancras.
Joseph and Elizabeth Boden in the 1851 census
So is this a picture of settled Victorian middle-class family life? It might have been, if we weren’t fairly certain that Joseph had committed bigamy when he married Elizabeth, and if we didn’t suspect that Elizabeth had her revenge when she took a second husband shortly afterwards. Even without these facts, we might wonder why the Bodens were childless after ten years of marriage, particularly given the normal birthrate in Victorian families. But I’ve found no record of any children born to the couple.
In the last post, I wrote about the marriage of Joseph’s fellow dentist Charles Hobbs and Harriet Westbrook, the sister of Joseph’s first wife Georgiana. Despite the apparent problems in that relationship, the couple produced six children in their first thirteen years together. Of course, there may have been medical reasons why the Bodens were unable to have children. But given what we know about the nature of their marriage, one suspects that there might have been other reasons.
Despite the fact that Joseph and Elizabeth were living together in 1851, it’s difficult to imagine that the intervening ten years had been trouble-free. Were they now reconciled after a time apart? Had Elizabeth discovered Joseph’s deception, or was it still a secret from her? Was their cohabitation a sign of a genuine relationship, or a fiction for official purposes? One would love to travel back in time and be a fly on the wall in Lawrence Lane on that evening in March 1851 and assess the situation for oneself.
In the ten years since Elizabeth’s marriage to Joseph, there had been some important changes in her family. Elizabeth’s mother, and my great-great-great-grandmother, Margaret Robb had died on 1st December 1843 at the age of 62 and had been buried six days later at St-Martin-in-the-Fields. In March 1844 Elizabeth’s brother John, a parliamentary clerk, had married Mary Ann Downes in Lambeth. They had one son, born in 1844 and named Charles Edward Stuart Robb after his grandfather, who sadly died in infancy, and a daughter, Mary Ann, who was born in 1847. Another brother, George William, also a clerk, died from influenza and bronchities at his home in Villiers Street, off the Strand in 1847; he was 30 years old. A third brother, William (my great-great-grandfather) lost his wife Fanny to pneumonia shortly after the birth of their son Charles Edward (my great-grandfather) early in 1851. Elizabeth’s older sister Matilda was still in Cornwall, working as a lady’s maid, in 1851.
Tenison Street can be seen near the top of this section of Weller’s 1868 Map of London (via london1868.com)
The death of his wife seems to have led to Charles Robb, Elizabeth’s father, leaving Charing Cross and moving across the river to Lambeth, perhaps to be near his son John. Sadly, none of his adult children seem to have had the will or the means to provide him with a home. As a result Charles seems to have spent his final years in relative poverty, sharing a house with four families, including the large family of portable water closet maker William Matthews, in Tenison Road, off York Road, and close to what would become Waterloo Station.
Shortly before his death in June 1853 Charles Robb composed his last will and testament. He seems to have had precious little property for his children to inherit: a few valued possessions as well as his clothes and household furniture, to be sold to pay for his funeral expenses, and any money left over to be divided equally between his four surviving children.
One clause in the will is of particular interest for our story. Charles Robb declares that his daughter Elizabeth’s share is to be to be ‘free from the debts or control of her husband’. Now, this may have been a standard legal precaution. Alternatively, it may say something about Joseph Boden’s financial situation and the state of his relationship with Elizabeth.
Charles Robb’s will was witnessed by William Matthews and his wife Elizabeth, and it was the latter who signed the death certificate when Charles died on 10th June at the age of 73. The cause of death is given as ‘old age’ but there is also mention of ‘paralysis 6 years’, suggesting a painful decline in his final years. My great-great-grandfather was buried at the church of St John, Waterloo Road, in Lambeth.
By the time the next national census was taken in 1861, both Joseph and Elizabeth Boden would also be dead. Tracing the final years of their lives requires us to examine the role played by Elizabeth’s sister Matilda, who will be introduced in the next post.
The Bonds of Betrayal 