enoch perry
Subject Name : Enoch Perry (b 1861 – d 1937)
Researcher : Margaret Rose
Enoch Perry came through tough early years as a vagrant before joining the Army, despite some serious health issues. He went on to raise a large family, but suffered the tragedy of losing a daughter in a highly-publicised case of manslaughter.
Enoch William Perry was born on 24th November 1861 at The Quarry, Hornton in the Banbury area of Oxfordshire, the son of Mary Maria Perry. No father was named, but this was perhaps not surprising as Mary was only 15 years old. The Census in April earlier that year showed Mary had been a schoolgirl at the Crouch Street School in Banbury.
Three years later, in July 1864, Enoch’s mother married Samuel Hawtin at Hornton’s St John the Baptist Church. The 1871 Census recorded that 9-year-old Enoch was not with his mother Mary, Samuel, and their young family in nearby Radway village, but was at Hornton Quarries with an aunt and uncle.
A nomadic lifestyle
Enoch did not remain in the area, as on 16th December 1880 the 19-year-old was admitted ‘from Infirmary’ to the Raine Street Workhouse, Stepney, close to the London Docklands and over 80 miles (130km) from his Hornton birthplace. His occupation was noted as a ‘boot closer’, a skilled job involving stitching together the upper parts of a shoe. He left the workhouse two days later by his ‘own desire’.
Although it was mid-winter, Enoch seemed to have adopted a nomadic lifestyle, as just over a 
month later, on 25th January 1881, he was admitted to Richmond Hospital in south-west London having been found on the street suffering from exhaustion caused by the cold.
The Census of April 1881 confirmed Enoch’s unhappy situation as he was listed as an unmarried 19-year-old ‘vagrant’ boot closer in the Guildford Union Workhouse. There are no records to show why Enoch was there but he had clearly been wandering from place to place.
Vagrants, or casuals as they were also known, were only permitted to stay for one night in the Workhouse, having to perform a designated work task the following morning to ‘pay’ for their keep before being moved on (for more detail on ‘casuals’ in the Workhouse, read Henry Simmonds’ story).
Enoch enlists in the Army
Five months later, Enoch was 100 miles (160km) south-west of Guildford in Dorchester, the county town of Dorset, although this time with an entirely different purpose. On 12th September 1881, he enlisted in the Army with the newly-formed Dorsetshire Regiment. He was described as 5 feet 9 inches (1.75m) tall, weighing 120 pounds (55kg) with a fresh complexion, brown hair, grey eyes and a scar on the right of his upper lip.
The Dorsetshire Regiment initially remained at home, with Enoch promoted to the rank of Lance Corporal on 31st July 1883. It was not long after that the Regiment received its first overseas posting. On 18th December 1883 it left Aldershot bound for Delhi, India, from where the Regiment progressed onwards to Roorkee and then Peshawar, now part of Pakistan.
Although Enoch was still only 22 years old when he arrived in India, he had been regularly suffering from bronchitis and palpitations, which was noted on one occasion as to be ‘probably the result of smoking’. He was in Army hospitals nine times before the voyage to India, but worse was to follow during his time in Peshawar where he suffered from what was diagnosed as ‘melancholia’. The cause of his depression was ‘not known’, but Enoch was confined to hospital for over six months from April 1884 before being discharged in November as ‘improved’.
His ‘melancholia’ returned in January 1885, and Enoch came back home to England. Upon his arrival in England, he was taken straight to Netley Military Hospital near Southampton. He was discharged from the Army at Netley Hospital in March 1885 as being ‘medically unfit for further service’. His Army record did value his time in service, however, saying he was ‘steady, good and temperate’.
On Enoch’s return, he learnt that his mother had passed away in Radway in January 1885.
Father of ten, with a variety of jobs
Following his early discharge from the Army, it seems that 23-year-old Enoch returned to Dorset, as within ten months, he had become an ‘artist “painter”’, had married and was the father of Dora Bessie Perry, born in Bincombe, near Weymouth on 17th January 1886.
Dora’s birth certificate showed that Enoch’s ‘wife’ was Kate Rebecca Perry née Peaty. Kate was the 19-year-old daughter of George and Sarah Anne Peaty from Cerne Abbas, Dorset. No marriage record has been traced for Enoch and Kate. They had Dora baptised at Bincombe’s Holy Trinity Church on 7th March 1886, but gave their address as 39 Thames Street, Kingston upon Thames.
They didn’t stay here long, moving the short distance to East Molesey where two more children, Ethel Kate (1887) and William Walter (1889), were born. Enoch had clearly abandoned his career as an artist as he was listed as a ‘gardener’ on their baptism records.
Before long Enoch’s occupation changed again, as by 1891 he was a ‘general dealer’. Living in East Molesey, the family continued to grow with Florence Maud born in 1892, Lilian Mabel in 1896, Ivy May in 1897 and Arthur Enoch in 1900. Lilian Mabel had passed away in 1898.
Ivy and Arthur were baptised together at St Mary’s Church, East Molesey in February 1901 with the register recording their father Enoch to be a ‘soldier’ again. This may account for Enoch not being traced on the 1901 Census, while his family were living in Hurst Road, East Molesey. However, no military record for Enoch around this period has been traced.
Whatever the reason for his absence, Enoch was soon back home, as Kate gave birth to Albert Edward in 1901 and Harry in 1903, with Enoch now working as a ‘labourer’ . Their tenth and final child, Ernest Charles, was born in 1904 in Thames Ditton. Harry died in 1906.
The 1911 Census showed Enoch and Kate living at 8 Gladstone Place, Summer Road, East Molesey, working together as ‘dealers in general stores’, and where they remained for the rest of their lives. With them were five of their children – William, Flo, Arthur, Albey and Ernest – and their 2-year-old grandson William Robinson.
Grandson William’s mother was Enoch and Kate’s eldest daughter (Dora) Bessie, who had married art dealer Horace Robinson in 1906. Bessie and Horace also had two younger children – Norman Horace born in 1909 and Nita Violet in 1911.
The 1911 Census taken on 2nd April recorded Bessie and Horace, a self-employed art dealer in furniture, as living at 17 Stamford Brook Mansions, Chiswick, where Nita Violet had been born some 6 weeks earlier. However, none of the children were with their parents. William was with Bessie’s parents Enoch and Kate, while 1-year-old Norman Horace and baby Nita Violet were ‘visitors’ of a widowed mother, occupation ‘nurse’, and her four children in Norfolk.
The reasons behind this situation are not known, but Bessie and Horace’s Census return had been filled in by their live-in servant, so perhaps none of the family were in Chiswick that day.
‘The Barnes Tragedy’: Manslaughter of daughter Ivy
Another person not found on the 1911 return was Bessie’s 14-year-old sister Ivy, who had been living with Bessie and Horace for about six years, since the age of 8.
Bessie and Horace’s marriage collapsed around 1916, with Bessie leaving Horace. Ivy remained living with her brother-in-law Horace, some 20 years her senior, which would have a devastating and fatal outcome.
Ivy and Horace were now in a relationship. They had a son, Roy, probably in 1917, although no official birth certificate has been located.
After about five years with Horace, Ivy began an affair with ice-skating teacher Edward John McManus. On 12th April 1921, she invited him to her home in Clavering Avenue, Barnes.
Edward McManus brought a friend along with him that night, during which it became clear that Edward had been invited to hear Ivy tell Horace she was intent on leaving him for Edward. Horace pleaded with Edward to tell Ivy to stay, even if it was only for the sake of their child.
Well after midnight, with Edward and his friend still there, Ivy went upstairs. She was followed by Horace, shortly after which Edward heard a scream. He ran up to find Ivy with her throat cut, saying ‘He has done me in’. Edward was unable to stop her bleeding and Ivy died, aged 23.
Horace ran off, but shortly afterwards gave himself up to the police, admitting he had ‘stuck a pen-knife’ into Ivy’s throat.
At the highly-publicised trial held at the Old Bailey on 2nd June 1921, Horace received a five-year prison sentence for manslaughter, as the jury concluded that he had only intended to threaten Ivy with the pen-knife, not to kill her.
The 1921 Census, taken just a few days after the trial, showed Ivy and Horace’s 4-year-old son Roy Robinson was being cared for by his grandparents, Enoch and Kate, at their Gladstone Place home.
Bessie attempts to divorce her husband
Enoch and Kate’s pain over the shocking loss of Ivy was to continue in public as their daughter Bessie soon began divorce proceedings against her convicted husband Horace for ‘cruelty and misconduct’.
Bessie made appalling allegations about his behaviour during their marriage, saying that Horace had fathered two children with Ivy who would only have been 12 and 14. Their birth certificates showed that Bessie was the mother of the two children.
Bessie did admit that she herself had committed ‘misconduct’ one night, which had resulted in the birth of a child, but the President of the Divorce Court exercised his discretion and granted Bessie a decree nisi.
However, the decree absolute was overturned when further evidence was provided. The court heard that Bessie had been ‘living in adultery from 1916 to 1921’ and that her allegations about Horace were just not true. Summing up, Mr Justice Horridge said ‘It is shocking perjury that is committed in this court’, and threw out Bessie’s appeal for a divorce.
What happened to Bessie and Horace after this has not been traced.
Enoch re-enlists
Enoch and Kate had remained at 8 Gladstone Place throughout this turbulent time, although Enoch had left home in late 1914, just after the outbreak of World War 1, when he enlisted for the Army despite being almost 53. His service, with the Railway Companies National Reserve, lasted less than a year as he was diagnosed with kidney disease. In mid-1915 he was discharged as ‘medically unfit’, 30 years after his first discharge from the Army as ‘medically unfit’.
Enoch’s trade on discharge was given as ‘boatman’ which he continued for a time after this, working on his own account by 1921. By the time of Kate’s death on 27th April 1933 he was a ‘general labourer’.
Following this, Enoch, now into his 70s, took up a new occupation as a ‘golf caddie’. Enoch died on 11th January 1937, aged 75 at Kingston Hospital. As his military exploits had shown, Enoch’s health for much of his life had been a problem. His death certificate said that he had been suffering from myocarditis and chronic bronchitis, the latter originally diagnosed well over 50 years earlier during his time in the Army. Like his wife Kate, his funeral was held at Thames Ditton’s St Nicholas Church.
March 2023, updated December 2024
References
Ancestry.co.uk
FindMyPast.co.uk / British Newspaper Archive
General Register Office GRO.gov.uk
National Army Museum NAM.ac.uk
Surrey History Centre Surreycc.gov.uk
Wikipedia.org
For a full list of references click here.