Harriett jelly

Subject Name :  Harriett Jelly (Jelley)
(b1821 – d 1898)

Researchers : Julie Cameron & Margaret Rose

Guildford charities benefit St Mary’s family

Harriett Jelly, after helping her family care for her elder brother, became a domestic servant before she was forced into the Guildford Union Workhouse.  After a spell in Guildford’s Abbot’s Hospital alongside her mother, Harriett was readmitted to the Workhouse where she remained for many years. She never married.

Harriett was born in Guildford in 1821, the daughter of James and Sarah Jelly née Jones and was baptised at St Mary’s Church on 29^th July ^{1, 2}. She was the fifth of nine children for cordwainer (shoemaker) James and Sarah, all baptised at St Mary’s ³.

Like many families of that time, they suffered from dreadful infant mortality. Two of Harriett’s older brothers, James and Stephen, died in July 1818 age 4 and 1 respectively and were buried at St Mary’s on the same day ⁴. Her sister Ellen, born in 1826, only lived for two years before she too passed away ⁵. 

In the 1841 Census Harriett, age 21, her parents James and Sarah, and her siblings Thomas, Eliza and Maria, were living in Swan Lane, Guildford ⁶. This was, and still is, a narrow lane between the High Street and North Street.

Harriett, although not in employment, was most likely fully involved in the care of her elder brother Thomas. According to later Census records, he was an ‘idiot’, a shockingly blunt – but then acceptable – term used at the time ^{7, 8}.

Eight years after this census, in October 1849, at the age of 30, Thomas was admitted into the Guildford Union Workhouse ⁹.  

In the Workhouse around the same time as Thomas was their father James.  He passed away there from pneumonia in May 1850, aged 66 and was buried at St Mary’s Church ^{10, 11}.

By the time of the 1851 Census Harriett, aged 30, had left the family home and moved a few minutes’ walk down the road to work as a servant for widow Mary Bell at 10 Chertsey Street ¹².    Harriett’s mother Sarah, 62, was living on her own in Swan Lane and working as a nurse ¹³. Her brother Thomas remained in the Workhouse, and had been joined at some stage by their youngest sibling Maria, noted there as a 19-year-old pauper servant in 1851 ^{14, 15}.  Maria passed away in the Workhouse in March 1859, age 27, and she too was buried at St Mary’s Church ^{16, 17}. It’s not known if she had been in the Workhouse continuously during those eight years.

In the same year as Maria’s death, Harriett’s brother Thomas was transferred from the Guildford Union Workhouse to the Springfield Surrey County Asylum in Wandsworth following a report on his behaviour in the Workhouse ^{18, 9}.  Life was often difficult for inmates like Thomas, with the report saying ‘if annoyed or teased, as such unfortunates too frequently are, he becomes violent …. has occasionally struck at men with any tool which he might have in his hand’. In mid-1867 Thomas was among the first patients transferred to the second Surrey County Asylum at Brookwood when it opened ¹⁹.  He passed away there in 1871 ²⁰. 

By 1861, Harriett had also entered the Guildford Union Workhouse ²¹.  Erroneously noted on the Census as age 30 – she was at least ten years older – Harriett was an unmarried domestic servant. There are no records available to show the date or the reasons for her admission.

Harriett’s mother Sarah, age 74, was also described as an inmate in 1861, but of the Archbishop Abbot’s Hospital in Guildford High Street ²². This was not a hospital as such, but ‘a shelter for the elderly poor of the town’ founded in 1619 ²³.  The building continues to provide independent living in Guildford today.

Normally, a person in Sarah’s situation with no income would have been forced into the Workhouse, but it seems probable that she was given help known as alms due to the respect in which her late husband was held, having been a cordwainer in the centre of town for over 35 years.  Sarah had the benefit of her 27-year-old daughter Eliza for company in the hospital for a time as she was a live-in ‘nurse/domestic servt.’ but Eliza moved on having married in 1863 ²⁴.  

Sometime after 1861, Harriett left the Workhouse and also became an inmate of the Abbot’s Hospital.  Like her mother, she too benefited from a little financial support. In 1870, she received 12 shillings (£0.60) from the Poyle Charity, with a similar donation coming the following year ^{25, 26}.  This was a charity set up in 1628 to help vulnerable people in need or distress in Guildford, and continues its work today ²⁷.

The 1871 Census showed Harriett, 49, and her 82-year-old mother Sarah living at the Abbot’s Hospital ²⁸.  Sarah was noted as an ‘almswoman’. 

In October 1875, Harriett had an accident, slipping over when leaving a Guildford chemist’s shop, and breaking her leg ²⁹.  Harriet was able to recover, but two months later her mother fractured her femur in an accident, and passed away aged 88 ³⁰.

It appears that Harriet was not able to stay at Abbot’s Hospital after her mother’s death, as she was once again a Guildford Union Workhouse inmate by the time of the 1881 Census ³¹. 

She probably remained in the Workhouse for the rest of her life, dying there on 9^th May 1898 aged 77 after suffering a cerebral haemorrhage ^{32, 33}.  Harriet was buried at the family church of St Mary’s ³⁴.

August 2023, updated July 2024
Edited by Mike Brock

Footnote: Lucy Milsom also benefitted from from Poyle’s Charity at the same time as Harriet Jelly. 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 Harriett Jelly, or have simply enjoyed reading her story. 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 parish and other records were sourced through FindMyPast.co.uk and Ancestry.co.uk.  A complete list of references may be found at Harriett Jelly 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