BRYER of Surrey Chart no. 10

	John Henry [Cape?] BRYER		Emma BERRY
	b. 1814 Hammersmith (12 Jan?) bap. 26 Dec 1824 Marylebone MDX?		b. circa 1816 Middlesex
			m. 10 Feb 1834 Newington St Mary
	d. 27 Feb 1885 St Giles		d. 27 Nov 1890 St Giles
	Hatter (until about 1855) Cab Proprietor (from about 1855)

Their Children

John	Thomas	Frederick	Henry	Walter James	Jane	Kate	Arthur	Emily Louisa	Amelia [Jane]	Ernest William [William Ernest]	Alfred Edward
b. 1834/5	b. 1837/8 Christchurch, Southwark	b. 26 Dec 1839 St Mary Magdalen, Bermondsey	b. 24 Jan 1843, Frederick St Bermondsey	b. 30 Nov 1845 Newington St Mary	b. 7 Dec 1848 St George Southwark	b. 13 May 1851 St George the Martyr, Southwark	b. 9 July 1853 St George the Martyr, Southwark	b. 15 July 1855 St Giles	b. 11 May 1859 St Giles	b. 18 Jan 1862 St Giles	b. 30 May 1864 St Giles
	m. Emma Adelaide TONGE (nee IRONS) 30 Jun 1877 Islington	m. Frances BENNETT 25 Dec 1860		m. Phoebe BISHOP 28 Apr 1867 Holborn			m. Louisa NEWTON 20 May 1877 City of London	m. Thomas FIELD 31 Jul 1887 at St Andrew by the Wardrobe, Blackfriars	m. Thomas SPINKS 26 Feb 1893 at St Peter Regent Square, St Pancras	m. Louisa HOUGHTON 25 Dec 1889 at St Andrew Holborn	m. Alice Elizabeth ROGERS circa 1891
		d. 30 Apr 1919 Greenwich RD KEN aged 79	d. 6 Dec 1847	d. 6 Aug 1896, London County Lunatic Asylum, Ilford, ESS, aged 52			d. 1922 Islington RD MDX aged 69		d. 1944 Islington RD MDX aged 84	d. 1932 West Ham RD aged 70

Who They Were

John Henry is a bit of a mystery. He was consistent in all censuses that he had been born in 1814 in Hammersmith; but I could find no record of a baptism in Hammersmith for him, nor anywhere else. There is, however, a baptism in 1824 in Marylebone for a John Henry Cape Bryer, son of the late John and Mrs Amelia Bryer, which helpfully gives his birthdate as 12 Jan 1814. This seems a likely candidate for my John Henry, although I wonder why he dropped the "Cape" from his name? Certainly the fact that he named one of his daughters Amelia could point to the connection.
Emma did not have a family member as witness to the marriage, but one witness signed Eliza Bryer; could this have been a sister or aunt of John Henry? I have not as yet found any other children of John and Amelia.

It may be entirely coincidental, but in the 1841 census there are a number of seemingly unrelated adults listed at the same address:
John Wetherill, 20, Millwright, born in county
Stephen Bennett, 25, Hatter, not born in county
Frances Bennett, 20, not born in county
Elizabeth Gatland, 20, not born in county

Where They Lived

The earliest address for John Henry and Emma is that on the birth certificate of their third child, Frederick. In Dec 1839, they were living at 5 Mellick Place in the parish of St Mary Magdalen Bermondsey.

In 1845, When Walter James was born, they lived at 25 Lion Street, close to what is now the Elephant and Castle and just off the Old Kent Road.

In 1847, when their fourth child Henry died, they were living in Dyers Buildings, Gravel Lane, St Saviour.

In December 1848, when Jane was born, and in May 1851, when their seventh child Kate was born, they lived at 14 Collier's Rents, St George the Martyr. This short street ran behind and to the east of Borough Road in Southwark.

By July 1855, they had moved to 21 Tavistock Mews, St Giles. They remained at this address until Emma died in 1890.

Amelia was named Amelia on her birth certificate, although the GRO Index referred to her as Amelia Jane. On her marriage certificate she was also just Amelia. I suspect the Jane was added by an inattentive clerk, but have yet to prove it. At the time of the 1891 census, Amelia was living with and keeping house for, her brother Alfred at 29 Argyle Square, St Pancras, in the Gray's Inn area of the borough. Alfred was also a cab driver.

When Amelia married in 1893, both she and her groom gave 25 Sidmouth Street as their address. Her groom was Thomas SPINKS, Wheelwright, the same Thomas SPINKS who boarded with her parents at Tavistock Mews for more than ten years. There is another curious thing about this marriage; she gives her father as John Bryer, Hatter - he had not been a hatter for some forty years, in fact she was born after he became a cab proprietor. So did she just make a mistake? Or is there something else afoot here? There was a John Bryer, Hatter, living in Southwark, of the right age to be the eldest child of John Henry and Emma - did he have a daughter also called Amelia, born almost at the same time as Amelia Jane?

Family composition at the time of the 1841 Census | 1851 Census | 1881 Census

An interesting account of the life of a London Cab Driver is to be found among the writings of Charles Dickens. Click Here for a transcript.

Family Group Identifiers

Family: BRYERU1
Family Group: b-sry010