Mary Ann, Hannah, Edward Carver
Subject Names : Mary Ann Carver (b 1835 – d unknown)
Hannah Carver (b 1869 – d 1949)
Edward Carver (b 1873 – d 1931)
Researcher : Jean Libaert
Mary Ann Carver, orphaned at just 6 years old, led an itinerant life, having probably four illegitimate children in Worcestershire and Surrey. After being an inmate of the Guildford Union Workhouse in 1881 with two of her children, Hannah and Edward, Mary Ann disappeared from the records. Her son Edward joined the Army, although mental health problems brought that to a premature end. Hannah and her elder sister Elizabeth, however, both went on to successfully raise large families in Godalming.
Mary Ann Carver was born in Ripley, Surrey on 7th February 1835, the daughter of single mother Sarah Carver. She had a half-brother Edward, born in Ripley three years earlier. No father was named on either baptism record.
The 1841 Census showed 6-year-old Mary Ann – recorded just as Ann – living with her mother Sarah and widowed grandmother in Ripley Street, Send. Edward was not with them, instead living with his uncle and aunt close by in Prey Heath, Woking.
Just five months later, in November 1841, Mary Ann’s mother Sarah died at home aged 30 from ‘syphilis’. Sarah’s mother Frances was present at her death. Frances was now in her mid-sixties, so would she have been able to care for her young grand-daughter Mary Ann? Four years later, Frances passed away too, aged 70, with Mary Ann just 10.
Mary Ann goes missing
At the time of the 1851 Census, Mary Ann’s half-brother Edward was still with his uncle and aunt in Prey Heath, but there was no sign of Mary Ann. She was now 15, but has not been traced in the Guildford Union Workhouse, with relatives, or indeed anywhere else in either the 1851 or 1861 Censuses. However, records from the 1850s that may well be for Mary Ann perhaps start to tell the story of how she came to be in the Guildford Union Workhouse.
A birth certificate from February 1856 recorded that a Mary Ann Carver had given birth to an illegitimate daughter of the same name in Littleworth, near Evesham, Worcestershire. The baby only lived for 16 days with the death certificate saying mother Mary Ann was a ‘pedlar’. Working as a pedlar roaming the country would have been a likely reason she was missed by Census enumerators in 1851 and 1861, but perhaps a more telling reason for believing that this Mary Ann was from Ripley was that, according to the 1871 Census, a second daughter, Elizabeth, was also born in Worcestershire, although no birth certificate has been found for her to verify the details.
Return to Guildford
The Guildford Union Poor Law Accounts for 1864 to 1871 (the only years for which the Accounts still exist) showed that 29-year-old Mary Ann Carver and daughter Elizabeth, of Send & Ripley Parish, entered the Guildford Union Workhouse in mid-1868, and were inmates there for long periods.
During this time, Mary Ann became pregnant again, giving birth to Hannah in the Workhouse on 25th November 1869. No father was named on the birth certificate nor at her baptism. The Workhouse Birth Register noted that Hannah was Mary Ann’s third child, further evidence that the 1856 child in Littleworth was also hers.
After Hannah’s birth, the Accounts book showed that from March 1868 to September 1871 Mary Ann, 
Elizabeth and Hannah were almost permanent inmates. At one point in 1870 they left the Workhouse, only to be taken back at the expense of the Union because they had ‘no home’.
The April 1871 Census confirmed ‘domestic servant’ Mary Ann in the Guildford Union Workhouse with her two daughters, Worcester-born Elizabeth, and 1-year-old ‘Annie’ (Hannah).
Despite the sheer poverty and hardship that enveloped Mary Ann’s life, she became pregnant for a fourth time, giving birth to John Edward Carver on 2nd April 1873 in the Workhouse. As before, no father was named.
Mary Ann and her three children didn’t remain in Guildford, as they were soon in the nearby Farnham Workhouse. In January 1874, Guildford Union received a letter from Farnham Union asking Guildford to accept ‘Mary Ann Carver and her 3 illegitimate children belonging to Ripley’.
Three months later the family was again in Farnham, with their Workhouse Minutes noting ‘MA Carver and her children released from hospital, accepted’. No reason was given for why they had been in hospital.
The next record found for Mary Ann and her children is the 1881 Census, when she was once more in the Guildford Union Workhouse, an unmarried domestic servant. Her two youngest children, 11-year-old Hannah and Edward, 7, were scholar inmates. Her eldest daughter Elizabeth had left the Workhouse and was a general servant for a licensed victualler in Godalming.
This 1881 Census is the last record traced for Mary Ann Carver. She almost certainly left the Guildford Union Workhouse as their death records do not include her name, but beyond that, she seemingly disappeared. If she was the pedlar in Worcestershire, this vanishing act would not be too surprising, although walking away from her three children is perhaps unexpected.
Daughter Annie settles into family life
Annie was 11 at the time of the 1881 Census, and her general education would have included preparing her for life outside the Guildford Union Workhouse around her 13th birthday. Annie did indeed follow this route as she was a domestic servant living and working in Bridge Street, Godalming in early April 1891. 21-year-old Annie was just a couple of weeks off her wedding day, marrying labourer Sidney May, 22, in Godalming. Annie’s half-sister Elizabeth, a witness at the wedding, had married Sidney’s older brother George William May back in 1882.
Annie and Sidney settled in Ockford Road, the same street as Elizabeth and George, with their first child Amelia arriving in July 1891 shortly after their marriage 22, 23. 
The family quickly grew, the 1901 Census showing Annie and Sidney with five children. They eventually had seven, although two of the children passed away at a very young age.
Annie and Sidney’s son Donald was called up in 1916 for the Great War, serving with the Royal Army Service Corps (Mechanical Transport) as a driver in Basrah and Baghdad, Iraq. He survived the War but was hospitalised in Iraq on a number of occasions including for both smallpox and malaria.
No service record exists for Annie and Sidney’s other son Sidney – many of these records were destroyed in a bombing raid on London in September 1940 – but Sidney joined the Royal Army Service Corps and also came through the conflict.
The 1921 Census showed Annie and Sidney still at 124 Ockford Road with their children Donald, Annie and Eva. Both husband Sidney and son Donald were noted as out of work labourers, a major problem in post-war Britain – unemployment peaked at 23.4% in May 1921. Their sisters Annie and Eva were working at a confectioner’s shop in Godalming.
Annie’s husband Sidney passed away in 1935 aged 66, but Annie remained in Ockford Road. In 1939 she was living there with her three daughters and a granddaughter, and died there in September 1949, aged 79. She was laid to rest in Eashing Cemetery, Godalming, in the same plot as her husband.
Mary Ann’s son Edward’s Army career cut short by ill-health
Following the 1881 Census, it seems likely that Mary Ann’s son (John) Edward would have completed his education and training in the Guildford Union Workhouse. The 1891 Census showed him lodging with his half-sister Elizabeth and her family in Ockford Road, Godalming, working as a groom.
Just over four months later, in August 1891 18-year-old Edward enlisted in Guildford with the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. He said that he was a tailor, a skill he probably learnt in the Workhouse. His medical record described him as 5’ 4¾” (1.64m) tall, weighing 112lb (50kg) with bluish-grey eyes, brown hair and a dark complexion. He also had a dot tattooed on the back of his right forearm, a scar over his stomach and a wart on the side of his left shoulder blade!
Edward served with the 1st Battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment throughout his time in the Army, which came to a premature end after less than three years. In February 1894, Edward was admitted to an Aldershot hospital following a report that he had ‘behaved queerly in the barrack room’. Nothing unusual was found during two weeks of observation, so he was released. Ten days later, he was back in hospital, this time with ‘periods of depression alternating with excessive hilarity’ which the doctors diagnosed as ‘dementia’.
Although the use of the term ‘dementia’ in 19th Century medicine was far wider than it is now, Edward was clearly unwell, so in April, he was sent to Netley Military Hospital near Southampton for more tests. Here, they confirmed the diagnosis, and Edward was discharged from service as ‘medically unfit’ in July 1894, aged 21.
There are no records to show if Edward remained a patient at Netley Hospital. In fact, no records have been found for Edward for the next 20 years, until in August 1914, he admitted himself to the Merthyr Tydfil Workhouse, in Glamorganshire, Wales. He was 41, unmarried, a tailor, and had been living at the Metropole Lodging House in Bargoed. He had no family or friends as contacts, and his reason for admission was ‘mental’.
Two days later, Edward was moved to Bridgend Asylum where he was to spend the rest of his life. The 1921 Census confirmed Edward there, born in Guildford, an unmarried tailor. He passed away almost ten years later on 27th March 1931, aged 57. The cause of death, apart from congestion of his lungs and influenza, included ‘epilepsy 9 years’ and ‘epileptic insanity’, but no mention of the dementia diagnosed over 35 years earlier.
Half-sisters Elizabeth and Annie remain close in Godalming
Mary Ann’s eldest daughter Elizabeth, who had married George William May in 1882, eventually settled in 
Shackstead Road (later Shackstead Lane), Godalming, next to Ockford Road where her half-sister Annie and family were living.
Elizabeth and George remained here for the rest of their lives, George passing away in April 1929, aged 74.
The 1939 Register gave one final clue about Elizabeth’s origins, saying that she was born on 25th December 1860. All the Censuses from 1881 onwards and her death certificate point to an 1860/61 birth. The 1921 Register had said that her place of birth in Worcestershire was ‘not known’, but with no birth certificate traced, it seems that the circumstances of her birth will remain unclear.
Elizabeth lived until 1st May 1942 before passing away at her Shackstead Lane home. She was laid to rest in the same plot as her husband George at Eashing Cemetery, Godalming.
September 2023, updated March 2025
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
Sources
Ancestry.co.uk / Ancestry.com / Fold3.com
FindMyPast.co.uk / British Newspaper Archive
Carehome.co.uk
General Register Office GRO.gov.uk
Glamorgan Archives, Cardiff
Nightingale & Eashing Cemetery godalming-tc.gov.uk
Surrey History Centre, Woking Surreycc.gov.uk
Wikipedia.org
For a full list of references click here