john william mallandain + elizabeth walker
John was born in Cuddalore, India on 5 July 1810, the first son of John West Mallandaine and Maria McCally. Following his mother’s death in 1821, 11 year-old John sailed to England with his father and younger brother, George, but when his father returned to India and his career in the East India Company Army, John and his brother remained in England with his grandparents. His father sent money home for his care but John saw little of his father over the next 30 years.
John appears in the 1841 Census at 9 Pleasant Row in Bethnal Green where he was living with Elizabeth Walker and their six week old son. He was working as a Labourer and Elizabeth as a Launderess. She was born in Bethnal Green 1805, the daughter of George Cook. Their son, John William, was born on 29 April 1841 but he was not baptised until 25 May 1845, at St Matthew in Bethnal Green, possibly due to the fact that his parents were unmarried.
Their first home on Pleasant Row was located off the Whitechapel Road — very close to Duck Pond Row where John’s great-grandparents, James and Mary Mallandain, lived some 80 years previously. But the area had changed dramatically in that time with the open fields and orchards replaced by overcrowded and dilapidated buildings, appalling sanitary conditions and chronic poverty.
Sarah Maria was born on 20 April 1842 and baptised at St Matthew on the same day in 1845 as her brother John. Twins Peter and Thomas were born on 4 June 1843 and died the same day. Mary Eliza was born on 14 April 1844 but died seven months later on 28 November 1844 followed by Edward who was born in Bethnal Green on 24 August 1845 but died the very next day. In four years, John and Elizabeth had five children but only one survived and although the exact causes of death are not known, the poverty and unsanitary conditions in Bethnal Green no doubt contributed to their deaths.
In the mid 19th century, Bethnal Green was suffering from considerable neglect by the authorities and was plagued by epidemics and high mortality rates. There was virtually no drainage or sewage systems in place and clean drinking water was not generally available. Between 1843 and 1848, the mortality rates in the East End of London had doubled due to the prevalence of influenza and other preventable illnesses and unbelievably Spitalfields, Mile End and Whitechapel were even worse than Bethnal Green.
In 1848, Dr. Hector Gavin conducted an assessment of the sanitary conditions in Bethnal Green and published his findings in a pamphlet called Sanitary Ramblings, Being Sketches and Illustrations of Bethnal Green. He hoped that by publicising the situation, steps would be taken to improve the living conditions and alleviate the suffering of the residents. Unfortunately, the changes Dr. Gavin hoped for were slow to materialize. He noted in his introduction that:
To believe that the middle and upper classes were fully cognisant that multitudes of their fellow-beings have their health injured, their lives sacrificed, their property squandered, their morals depraved, and the efforts to christianise them set at nought by the existence of certain well-defined agents, and yet to find them either making no effort to alleviate, or to remove these misfortunes, or with a stern heart denying their existence, would be to charge these classes with the most atrocious depravity, and the most cruel heartlessness and selfish abandonment.
Gavin visited Pleasant Row on his rambles and described the condition of the street in his report:
Pleasant-row forms the northern side and Pleasant-place the eastern and southern sides of a quadrangular space opposite the Jews’ burying-ground. In the centre of this space is a smaller square made up of swine-pens and yards in which dung-heaps are piled.
After describing the prevalence of garbage, overflowing privies and ditches filled with putrefying filth, he states:
I do not think that in all my journeyings through the degraded haunts of wretched poverty in this poor parish have I found a scene so distressing.
Elizabeth gave birth to their seventh child, George Robert, at Ely Place on 5 July 1846 and he was baptised one month later at St John, Bethnal Green. They must have thought the worst was behind them when two more healthy children were born: Maria Euphemia on 23 October 1847 and Edward Peter on 6 April 1849.
John and Elizabeth lived together for ten years before they finally married at St Matthew, Bethnal Green on 4 June 1849. She was recorded in the marriage register as Elizabeth Walker late Cook but no details on her first marriage have been located. Since divorce was both difficult and expensive, they may have waited until Elizabeth’s first husband died freeing her to marry again.
The family appears at 10 Ely Place, Mile End in the census records between 1851 and 1871 and John’s occupation was variously listed as Labourer, Bricklayer and Oven Builder. Ely Place was located off of Globe Road just east of Cambridge Heath Road and its former location can be see today from Digby Street near the intersection of Globe Road and Roman Road in Bethnal Green. Hector Gavin also mentioned Ely Place in his report:
This place is in a most dilapidated state; most of the houses are in a wretched condition. Two of the houses are considerably below the level of the alley. Even now, on a dry frosty day, the soil in front of them is very wet, but after rains the hollow becomes a swamp. Much sickness and disease always prevail here. In one room I found five persons residing, two were ill with fever.
John’s grandfather owned a cottage on Ely Place and after his death in 1853, it passed to his uncle Edward and it is possible that this is the same cottage where John and Elizabeth lived with their children for over 20 years. Although attempts were made after the cholera epidemic of 1854 to improve sanitation and the quality of the water supply, outbreaks of cholera, diarrhea and infectious diseases such as measles, scarlet fever, small pox and whooping cough continued to plague the area and resulted in higher than average mortality rates. The family was touched by tragedy once again when their eleven year old son George died on 29 June 1857. He was buried at Victoria Park Cemetery on 6 July and only two days after his funeral, his ten year old sister Maria also died. Ten days later, John and Elizabeth were back at Victoria Park to bury another child.
The family celebrated when on 5 August 1861, their son John William married Ann Callaghan at St James in Shoreditch and shortly after, they moved from Cross Street in Bethnal Green to a neighbouring cottage on Ely Place.
Two months after John's wedding, Edward was baptised at the age of twelve at St Simon Zelots on 10 October. On 8 August 1864, he was indentured as an apprentice in the Merchant Navy for a period of four years. He was bound apprentice to William Robson and his first ship was the Warwick of Shields which was built in Sunderland in 1837 and operated out of the port of North Shields in Northumberland. He transferred to the Zabena on 11 June 1867 but drowned at sea three days later. No other details are listed so it is assumed he was swept overboard and could not be rescued before he drowned.
When John's aunt, Sarah Tustian Mallandaine, died in 1868, she left him a legacy of the proceeds of a £500 annuity in the Bank of England for the term of his natural life. When he died, his daughter Sarah would receive the proceeds of a £300 annuity.
Their only surviving daughter, Sarah Maria, left home to marry William Collins on 19 February 1868 at the church of St Mary in Islington. Elizabeth Walker died aged 65 on 18 January 1870 and John died at Ely Place on 17 July 1871, aged 62 years; they were both buried at Victoria Park Cemetery. In his will dated just two days before he died, John named Richard Colls,a publican of the Digby Arms on nearby Digby Street as the sole executor to his £200 estate and bequeathed his entire estate to his daughter Sarah who would also receive the proceeds of the annuity from her great-aunt.
John's will was proved on 24 November 1871 and administration was granted to Richard Colls but in 1888, John’s step-mother, Cecilia Hawkes, and his half-brother, Henry Hawkes Mallandaine, applied to the Great Western Railway Company to transfer John’s shares in the company to his estate. Cecilia along with Edward Mallandaine of Old Kent Road in Surrey (most likely John’s uncle) acted as Executors while Henry provided the declaration regarding his brother’s death. It is possible that Richard Colls had died or could no longer act as executor so John’s relatives applied in his stead but there is no further information in the record as to the value of the shares or if it was paid to Sarah. This record is particularly important as it is evidence that John must have maintained some sort of contact with his half-brothers and half-sisters from his father’s third wife.