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I agree- It is impossible to judge Ellen without having experienced the hardships she was facing. There were not support systems available then.

I don't know if this is Ellen's husband- but I felt it only fair to put it up too. It's dated in the May before he married Ellen.

Morning Post 03 May 1892

Thomas Vary, a labourer living at 3 Talbot Grove, Notting-hill was reexamined at West London Police court yesterday on the charge of committing a brutal assault upon Elizabeth Bruce with whom he had cohabited. - The complainant, for whose attendance the prisoner had been remanded, now appeared to give evidence. Her face was encircled with bandages and her injuries had obviously left her in an exhausted condition. She stated that on her return home from visiting friends the prisoner place a chair against the door to prevent her from escaping and said he meant 'paying' her. He then proceded to knock her about in a brutal manner, and cut her face in several places with a hammer-shaped ornament. Suffering from great terror and fight, and in a half dazed condition, she ran to the window and jumped out; falling into the area beneath. She got up and as the prisoner again threatened her with violence she climbed the garden wall and took shelter in the house of a neighbour. She was removed to the hospital where she has since remained.- Police Constable 202X said he found the prisoner concealed in the dust hole. He jumped out and endeavoured to make good his escape by scaling three walls. Witness followed and succeeded in arresting him.- Mr Plowden said it was the worst case of the kind that had come under his notice. The prisoner had inflicted serious injuries upon the unfortunate woman, who was induced to escape from the window. He committed the prisoner for six months with hard labour.

Alan I would seldom jump to judgment on any of our ancestors whose lives, and especially the circumstances they lived in, we cannot really understand

and I would say that especially about women, who had little control over their circumstances because of the little opportunity available to them and the little protection they were offered

and also, as Rose notes, the widespread dependence on alcohol, which was very profitable for some, and which placed women at risk both when they drank and when men drank.

Alan ................

you do have to be ready to find out anything when you start researching your family history, from what you've found out, to bigamous marriages, illegitimate children in every generation having more illegitimate babies, even suicides and murderers.

My father never talked about his father. All I knew was that he had died when Dad was young, and that he and his two brothers had each received one part of their father's gold pocket watch, chain and town crest set. All he said was that his mother had managed to save that set from the time his father died.

I found out when I started researching that he had been an alcoholic, and "ill-treated" his wife. My grandmother died 2 years before I was born, but several of my older cousins had known her and said that "it was a happy release for her when he died", even though he'd left her with 6 children aged between 3 and 21. Grandfather was 42 when he died of TB in March 1914. His eldest son was serving in WW1 within months.

There were only 2 children over the age of 18, others had died. The eldest child was 21 but had a bent spine and was unable to work. Harry was 18 and working in the cotton mill, but then joined the army. The next child was 13 and had to leave school and go to work to help support the family. My dad was 10, and there were 2 others younger than him.

They did all turn out well

and may I add that my own grandmother's life changed enormously for the better when my grandfather died at 65 - she lived for almost 35 years more, deserving every minute without the drinking, gambling and adultery. A while back I was trying to figure out whether he might have married bigamously while he was in the military ... my grandmother had lost track of him at the time ... or (as it turned out) it was his widowed same-named father remarrying in his middle age and we had just never known that ... my mum said she had no idea but having known my grandfather, she would not have put anything past him.

one of the houses they lived in when my father was a child became a shelter for battered women for a few years in the 1980s, which seemed fitting.

my dad lived his life on a vow not to be like his father.

my father and his siblings hardly drank .......... a glass at Christmas was the most any of them had!

Thank you all for your kind comments. All this is taking time to settle in, and makes me wonder how my grandfather survived. Silviaincanada, it seems you had the same experience as my mother, (not knowing anything of your grandfather).