Ann cooper
nee gilligan

Subject:              Ann Cooper née Gilligan (b ca 1818 – d 1895)

Researchers:     Katherine Rusbridge, Carol Thompson, Mike Brock

Ship rigger’s daughter and her travelling family drop anchor in Guildford

Ann Cooper, daughter of a Kent-based sailing ship rigger, raised a family with her husband Charles ‘on the road’, ending up in Guildford where she spent over a quarter of a century in the Union Workhouse.

Ann was born on 10^th February 1818, probably the second daughter of James and Mary Gilligan, and baptised 19 days later at Minster, close to Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent ¹.  A later Census record said that Ann’s place of birth was ‘at sea off the Nore’ ²³.  This is a large sandbank near Sheerness marking where the River Thames meets the North Sea and where ships anchored – the Royal yacht was there in 1822 ^{2, 3}.  Ann’s father James was a ‘rigger’ on sailing ships, responsible for fitting and maintenance of the network of ships’ ropes, cables, etc, so James and his wife Mary may well have spent time living on board a ship around the time Ann was born ⁴.

Records of Ann and her family are sketchy, but her parents, James Gilligan and Mary Conor, were married in July 1814 in Eastchurch, Isle of Sheppey, close to Sheerness ⁵. 

Their first daughter Mary was born in July the following year, and died just a few weeks later ^{6, 7}. The family had moved to Gillingham, Kent, by 1826 where their son Thomas was baptised ⁸. He died in February 1829 in nearby Chatham, another dockyard town ⁹.  

Another boy, five-year-old James Gilligan, was buried in Minster, Sheerness in October 1827 ¹⁰.  Although no baptism record has been traced for him to prove he was James and Mary’s first son, it seems most likely that he was, indicating that the Gilligan family were regularly moving from one dockside town to another for James’ work.

A family and travel further afield for Ann

Ann would have been about 14 when her father James died aged 55 in 1832 in Chatham ¹¹.  Ann’s mother Mary was still there in 1841, working as a servant for a chemist in the High Street ¹².

Ann was not with her mother at this time and has not been traced until the birth of her son, John Cooper, in April 1848 in Petworth, Sussex ¹³.  Ann’s husband was labourer Charles Cooper, with their son’s birth certificate saying they were living in Overton, Hampshire, about 40 miles (64km) away.  No marriage record for Ann and Charles has been found, nor a birth/baptism for their first known child, Charles, born in about 1845, probably in Brighton ^{19, 25}.  Their third known child, James, was born in August 1849 in Chichester, Sussex ¹⁴.     

The 1851 Census showed Ann, her husband and only two of their sons, Charles and James – John has not been traced – lodging with Charles Boxall, a ‘beerhouse and lodging house keeper’ in Horsham, Sussex ¹⁵.  It seems the Cooper family and Mr Boxall’s 23 other lodgers were not held in high regard by him – all of them were noted as ‘tramps’ with their marital status and place of birth marked as ‘NK’ – ‘not known’; only their ages were given.

The family’s itinerant lifestyle was made clear at the baptism of their son George in September 1853 at Sutton-cum-Seaford, Sussex by the vicar who wrote for the family’s ‘Abode’: ‘Chichester, but at the time of the Birth, Seaford’ – a distance of almost 40 miles (64km) apart with just 15 days between the birth and baptism ¹⁶.  He added that Ann’s husband Charles was a ‘traveller’, although the birth certificate said he was an ‘ag lab’ (agricultural labourer).

From Sussex to Surrey, Ann puts down roots in Guildford

Two more children, followed – Elizabeth, born in Petworth Workhouse, Sussex, in August 1856 and Ann in Castle Street, Guildford in March 1859 ^{17, 18}.  

Guildford was to mark the end of their travels as a family around the southern counties. 

The only member of the Cooper family traced on the 1861 Census was Ann and Charles’ eldest son Charles, a 16-year-old errand boy living and working at a lodging house at 4-6 Mill Lane, Guildford ¹⁹.  Although there is no sign on the Census of the rest of the family, they were almost certainly in the Guildford Union Workhouse – almost 200 inmate records have been lost from the 1861 Census ²⁰.

Just over a year later, in June 1862, Ann’s husband Charles died in the Workhouse from a fever, aged 47 ²¹.   This left 44-year-old Ann with three children under 10 years. Ann herself was not in the Workhouse, instead living in Mill Lane, presumably in the same lodging house as her eldest son Charles ²².  Two of her children, George and Ann, were permanent inmates of the Workhouse where they would have been receiving an education.  Elizabeth, seven, remained at home with her mother.  Ann’s other son James, who would’ve been about 14, has not been traced since 1851.

Ann was receiving poor relief at home from the Guildford Union for ‘illness’, and it was not until 1866 that Ann and daughter Elizabeth were also admitted to the Workhouse.  Ann was not yet a full-time inmate, but by September 1868 she was, almost certainly remaining an inmate for the rest of her life.  One of her children, though, progressed through the Workhouse education system to go into employment – 15-year-old George in 1869 received ‘clothes for service’ worth £1 10s (£1.50). Nothing has been found to indicate how George got on, or where he ended up.

At the time of the 1871 Census, 53-year-old Ann, described as a widowed needlewoman, was a Guildford Union Workhouse inmate with daughters Elizabeth, 14, and 12-year-old Ann ²³. Both were listed as scholars, although Elizabeth was a year older than when most inmates were placed into employment.  Ann’s eldest son Charles, a bricklayer’s labourer, had married Charlotte Peters in Guildford in August 1867 and was living in Mill Lane with their two young daughters ^{24, 25}.  They went on to have three more children before Charles died of tuberculosis there in April 1879 aged only 35 ^{26, 27}.

Ann was alone in the Workhouse by 1881 ²⁸. Her youngest daughter Ann was living in Mill Lane with husband James Boyce and their one-year-old daughter ²⁹.  Elizabeth married Albert Burgess in Guildford in May 1887 ³⁰.  Both Elizabeth and her sister Ann remained in Guildford ^{31, 32}.

The 1891 Census showed there had been no change to Ann’s life in the Guildford Union Workhouse, which came to an end there after more than 25 years on 2^nd August 1895 when she passed away, aged 77 ^{33, 34}.  She had been suffering from ‘chronic gout, many years’. 

November 2022, updated May 2026
Edited by Mike Brock

We’d love to hear from you if you are a relative of this Cooper or Gilligan family.  Please contact us by email at spikelives@charlotteville.co.uk  

Sources and References

Surrey parish records and newspapers are available at the Surrey History Centre, Woking. Digitised records were sourced through Ancestry.co.uk and FindMyPast.co.uk.  A complete list of references is at Ann Cooper 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