lucy milsom
Subject: Lucy Milsom(e) née Stacey (b 1803 – d 1881)
Researchers: Heather Turner, Bruce Beauchamp
‘Most deserving’ Guildford widow assisted by Poyle’s Charity
Lucy Stacey and her husband James Milsom both came from the Kingston upon Thames area, but sometime after their marriage, they moved to Guildford. They appear to have had no children. After James died, Lucy worked as a housekeeper while receiving assistance from a long-running local charity until she was forced into the Guildford Union Workhouse suffering from breast cancer, where she passed away in 1881.
Lucy was born on 1st June 1803 in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, the fourth of nine known children for labourer Henry and his wife Harriet Stacey née Weston 1, 2.
Seven of Lucy’s eight siblings were girls, with all the children born in Kingston upon Thames and baptised at the town’s All Saints’ Church.
Lucy’s husband-to-be James Charles Milsom was also baptised at All Saints, having been born in April 1804 to Joseph and Hannah Milsom in Ham, a village on the northern fringe of Kingston upon Thames 3,4, 5. Lucy and James married on 11th June 1827 just after her 24th birthday at St Peter’s Church in Petersham, also just outside Kingston upon Thames.
Lucy and James have not been traced on the 1841 Census, nor have birth or baptism records been found for any children. The 1851 Census showed the couple living in Friary Street, Guildford. Lucy was incorrectly entered as ‘Louisa’, and James, a bricklayer’s labourer, was noted as ‘deaf’ 5. There was a terrible stigma around deafness in mid-19th Century Britain with a widely held belief that the individual would be an ‘intellectual defect’, however we don’t know how much, if at all, James was affected socially 6.
Ten more year
s pass before they reappear in the records, again with an inaccuracy. Lucy and James were lodging with bookkeeper’s wife Eliza Allcott, her mother and two daughters in Trinity Church Yard, Guildford 7. Labourer James was named as ‘Francis’ while Lucy, named correctly, was now working as a laundress, the first time on a Census that she had been in employment.
Lucy perhaps had to work because her husband was ill, as just over three months later, on 14th July 1861, James died in their lodgings from an ‘effusion on the brain’, aged 57 8. He had also been suffering from ‘rheumatic gout’. His funeral took place at Holy Trinity Church, adjacent to their home, three days later 9.
Despite being widowed and nearing 60, no Guildford Union Poor Law records have been traced to show that Lucy received any poor relief or went into the Workhouse, so it seems certain that she continued working. However, Lucy’s plight as a widow on a small income reached the attention of Guildford’s Poyle Charity. This charity had been set up back in 1628 when the will of local man Henry Smith stated that he wanted his money to help vulnerable people in need or distress in Guildford. The money was invested in property in Guildford which became known as the Poyle Estate, currently the Old Town Mill and Pewley areas, allowing the charity to flourish 10.
For a time in the 
early 1870s, lists were published in local newspapers showing who were receiving the funds – only those not receiving poor relief and deemed to be the ‘most deserving’ were entitled to the money. In May 1870, while Lucy was living in Mount Street, Guildford, she was given 12 shillings (£0.60) by the charity for a six-month period 11. Although this does not sound very much, it would have been enough to buy bread for herself each week, or to purchase cheap clothing or shoes.
The 1871 Census confirmed Lucy was living in Mount Street, Guildford, working as a housekeeper for widower George Balchin 12. There were yet more enumerator errors, though – Lucy’s birthplace was given as Kensington rather than Kingston and her age was wrong too!
Lucy, ‘Widow Milsom’, was given a similar sum by the Poyle Charity each six months for the next couple of years 13. This may have continued longer, but after 1872, the beneficiaries’ names were no longer published in the newspapers.
How long Lucy remained working for George Balchin is not known, but a year after his death in 1878 and well into her 70s, Lucy was suffering from breast cancer 14, 17. This was an incurable disease at the time – the first surgical radical mastectomies only began to be carried out in the late 1800s 15. By the time of the April 1881 Census, Lucy was an inmate of the Guildford Union Workhouse 16.
Lucy succumbed to the cancer on 1st November 1881 in the Workhouse, probably in the Infirmary, aged 78 17. Her funeral was held at St Mary’s Church, Guildford two days later 18.
October 2022, updated August 2026
Edited by Mike Brock
Footnote: Harriet Jelly also received assistance from Poyle’s Charity at the same time as Lucy Milsom. She lived in Guildford’s Abbot’s Hospital for a while, another well-known local charity that still exists today. Both Harriet and Lucy ended their days in the Guildford Union Workhouse.
We’d love to hear from you if you are a relative of the Milsoms, or if you know where James and Lucy were in the 1830s and 40s. Please contact us by email at spikelives@charlotteville.co.uk, or on Facebook at ‘Tales from Guildford Workhouse’
Sources and References
Surrey parish and Guildford Union records and Surrey newspapers are available at the Surrey History Centre, Woking. Digitised records were sourced through FindMyPast.co.uk and Ancestry.co.uk. A complete list of references may be found at Lucy Milsom references
Spike Lives is a Heritage project that chronicles the lives of inmates, staff and the Board of Guardians of the Guildford Union Workhouse at the time of the 1881 Census. The Spike Heritage Museum in Guildford offers guided tours which present a unique opportunity to discover what life was like in the Casual/Vagrant ward of a Workhouse. More information can be found here