William Randall and Mary Brown of Stotfold

   William Randall, born at Harlington on 13^th March 1796, married Sarah Smith at Sundon on 5^th October 1817, and set up home there. They had a son, James, baptised on 31^st January 1819. Nine months later William was doing a month’s hard labour at Bedford Old House of Correction for a Misdemeanour in Husbandry. He was committed 0n 16^th September 1819, and released on 13^th October.

In 1822 William Randall, aged 26, five feet eight inches tall, with brown hair and a fresh complexion, turned Kings Evidence when committed at Bedford County Gaol on 8^th March for stealing wheat and got off without sentence. The prisoner was described as orderly.

      In 1826 a daughter, Hannah, was added to the family and in 1841, at the time of the Census, William Randule, wife, Sarah, and daughter, Hannah, 15, were living together at Sundon. James was obviously elsewhere.

Somewhere around 1845 William opened some dyeing works at his home – the first in the country dedicated to servicing the straw plait industry on a large scale. Black, a very poor brown and dark blue, were the only colours available at first, but Thomas Lye, who moved to the area from Yorkshire shortly afterwards, added a grey, and then the invention of aniline dyes revolutionized the whole process.

William 53, was described as a Dyer in the next Census in 1851 and he and Sarah could afford a servant, Daphne Perry and an apprentice, William Faulkner. Next door, also a dyer, was son, James, 33, and his wife, Jane, with twins, Hannah and William, 13, daughters Sarah Ann, 6, and Mary Ann, 2, and son, James, 1.

In 1859 William, now described as with grey hair, sallow complexion and proportionate features, a straw dyer able to read and write, was committed to the debtors cells at Bedford County Gaol for ten days by the Sheriff’s Court on 28^th June for owing Frederick Allen £46.11s. 10d. It didn’t say who Frederick Allen was. William was discharged on 18^th August.

In 1861 William was committed to the Debtors Cells at Bedford County Gaol for twenty-one days by Luton County Court on 29^th November for owing Cyrus Fordham, a coal merchant, £18.9s.6d. He was discharged on 12^th April1862.

In 1861, at the time of the Census, Sarah had been home alone at Sundon, because William was away visiting his other family, and his other woman, Mary Brown, at Stotfold, on the other side of the county. Not that Sarah knew that. And she probably remained ignorant of it until her death, which was recorded during the January – March period of 1863.

Mary Brown had been baptized at Arlsey, Bedfordshire, on 9^th September 1827, the daughter of labourer, Richard Brown and his wife, Sarah.

In 1841 she was living with her family in Arlsey. Richard was a straw dealer now. There was also brother, Richard, 22, sisters Sarah, 20, Betsy, 15, Fanny, 11, and Louisa, 5, and another brother, Amos, 8.

Mary’s mother, Sarah, had died by the time of the 1851 Census. Father, Richard, still a straw dealer, was living with son, Amos, 18, and daughter, Louisa, 15, who were both described as his assistants. Eldest brother, Richard, who had married another Mary, was living with her in his own home in Arlsey and being described as a straw factor. Sister Mary was living with them and being described as a straw plaiter.

In 1861 Richard Brown, now described as being past work, was living with youngest son, Amos, a straw cutter , wife, Emma, and daughter, Sarah Elizabeth, 4 months old. Eldest son, Richard, and his wife, Mary don’t appear in this, or any subsequent censuses, so there’s no saying what became of them.

Mary Brown moved to Stotfold, about two miles away from Arlsey in the opposite direction to Pirton, and still in Bedfordshire, and, though lacking a husband, began having children there in 1852, when her first child, daughter, Hannah, was born. Mary was 25 at the time, and William Randall, if he was their father, was 56.

 William Randall Brown, born at Stotfold on 9^th February 1853, was baptised there on 2^nd October 1856; James Brown born on 19^th September 1854, baptised Stotfold 2^nd October 1856; Randall Brown born on 6^th September 1856, baptised Stotfold 2^nd October 1856; Edwin Randall Brown, baptised Stotfold 20^th January 1859; Arthur Headley Brown born 26^th January 1860, baptised Stotfold  22^nd February 1860; Frederick Brown born 1862, baptised 10^th April 1870, Arlsey; Elizabeth Brown born 1862, baptised Arlsey 10^th April 1870; Francis born 24^th September 1865;  Minnie born 1867, baptised Arlsey 10^th April 1870; Joseph baptised Arlsey 10^th April 1870. Eleven children in all, of whom only the last three were actually registered under the name of Randall.

Whoever the father was, the ones registered as Brown should have gone through life bearing that name. William Randall, may or may not have been the father of some or all of them. The first girl Mary had had been named Harriet, the same as William’s legitimate daughter and of the first two boys, William was named that for obvious reasons, and James, given the same name as William’s legitimate son. Despite the children having no father’s name given when they were registered, William can definitely be linked with Mary Brown as the father of her children, because he made the mistake of visiting her on the day the 1861 Census enumerator was in town.

In the 1861 Census, surrounded by her children, with a servant, Maryann Saunder, 17, and with William Randole, straw plait dyer there described as a visitor, Mary was described as a widow. It was the only time William’s true place of birth was given in any of the censuses. Probably because he had no part in the recording of it. Following the wrong William Randall from the place of birth given on other censuses – Toddington -  had led me astray for a long time when I first started  researching my family history.

How they had managed their double life for so many years is impossible to say. Or what Mary’s friends and relatives thought about it, because they must have known even if William’s next of kin didn’t. His job probably meant he had to travel a lot, but how many times he visited her in a year is also impossible to say. Or if all her children were also William’s, despite his name not being on the birth certificate. Or if she sometimes had other lovers besides him. The Headley family, for instance, were rich and powerful and lived just over the border in Cambridgeshire. Closer to Stotfold than William Randall was living in Sundon. Was Arthur Headley named after a father who was part of that family, not a Randall?

Mary brown married William Randall at Stotfold on September 11^th 1864. Eighteen months after his wife’s death. She was described as a single woman, and her father as deceased, which he might have been by then.

In 1871, living at Hitchen Road, Arlsey, to where Mary had returned before son, Francis, was born there in 1865, were William Randall, retired straw plait dyer and wife , Mary, a straw plaiter, along with offspring who had all had the surname Brown in earlier censuses, given the surname Randall in this one.

It was the last appearance in any census of James, Randall and Edwin who, whichever of the surnames they chose to go by, vanished off the face of the earth from that day on as far as censuses were concerned. Along with father, William, but he had the excuse of having been buried at Arlsey on 29^th January 1872. After enjoying married life with his new wife a mere five years.

Eldest son, William, did go by the name of Randall because he moved to Yorkshire where he became a timber yard foreman in Leeds, his eldest son, Harry, being born there in 1877.  William’s youngest brother, Joseph, followed eventually and was lodging with William and his family in 1891. He too became a timber yard foreman and had a wife and a son of his own by 1901.

In 1881 Mary Randall, widow, 55, straw plater born in Arlsey, was back in Stotfold at 135 Asylum Road. As well as son, Joseph, a scholar, living with her there, there was daughter, Minnie, a straw plaiter, and other sons, Alfred and Francis. Both carpenter’s labourers.

Mary was buried at Arlsey on 24^th July 1886 aged 59. In 1901 Francis was a general labour living at Newington, London with wife, Lizzie Ellen, 30. Frederick Randall was a journeyman painter in Luton living with wife, Alice a shirt machinest on her own account at home and daughter Elsie, 4. Minnie married John Pike a cement labourer on the railway and they had children James Marion and Reginald. In 1891 the census recorded Minnie and the fort two of her children visiting brother, Arthur and his wife, Harriet, and son, James in Willesden.