jackson townsend + pauline yaniewicz
Jackson was born in London on 15 December 1804 to James Townsend and his wife Susanna Jackson and he was baptised at St Faith under St Paul on 10 January 1805. Jackson’s father was a successful publisher and the family lived in relative comfort in Marylebone.
After completing his education in 1823, Jackson apprenticed for five years as a law clerk with Samuel Walwyn Darke at his chambers in Red Lion Square in Holborn. The office was close to the more notable Inns at Court — Gray’s Inn, Lincoln’s Inn and the Inner and Middle Temples further south on the banks of the Thames. The Clerkship papers note that Samuel Darke was ‘an attorney of His Majesty’s Courts of King’s Bench and Common Pleas at Westminster and a solicitor in the High Court of Chancery.’ When his clerkship was complete, Jackson worked in chambers in Gray’s Inn but later moved to Birkenhead and in 1841, he was living on Abercrombie Terrace along with one house servant and working as an attorney at law.
On 22 August 1844, Jackson married Pauline Yaniewicz in Edinburgh. Pauline was born in London about 1812 to Felix Yaniewicz, a professional musician, and his wife Eliza Breeze. She studied music with her father and was an accomplished pianist and harpist and often performed in Liverpool with her sister Felicia. Her parents left Liverpool and settled in Edinburgh where her father helped produce the first Edinburgh music festival.
Their first son, Alfred Davison, was born in Birkenhead and baptised at St Mary on 21 October 1845. Pauline Douglas was baptised at St Mary on 13 December 1846 and Walter Mallaby on 13 September 1848. Their third son, Felix James, was born in the fall of 1849 but his baptism record has not been found.
Jackson initially worked as a law clerk to the magistrates at Birkenhead and was also a partner in a firm with Joseph Mallaby called Mallaby, Townsend & Newall. The partnership was dissolved in the fall of 1846 and by the following year, he was practising law as Jackson Townsend and Co.
In 1851, the family was living at 27 Prices Street in Birkenhead along with three domestic servants — a cook, a house maid and a nurse. Their son, Charles Harrison, was born shortly after the census was taken and baptised at St Anne in Birkenhead on 17 June 1851. Archibald Constable was born two years later and baptised at St Anne on 15 December and Horace William on 26 November 1859.
Ten years later, the family had moved to 33 Hamilton Square in Birkenhead. Their three eldest sons were away at boarding school - Alfred was studying at the Beaumarais Grammar School in Caernarvonshire while Walter and Felix were at the Brewood Grammar School in Staffordshire. When Alfred finished his schooling, he articled as a law clerk with his father and also with a William Townsend in Liverpool although it is not known if he was any relation to the family.
In 1871, sixty-six year old Jackson was still working as a solicitor but the family had moved again and were living at 29 Grange Mount in Birkenhead. Their sons were all training for their future careers with Alfred working as an Attorney’s Clerk, Charles as an Architect’s Pupil, and Archibald as a Merchant’s Clerk. Felix hasn’t been located in the census but Walter was living in Camberwell and working as a Merchant’s Clerk while Pauline was living with her aunt and uncle, Felicia and Felix Yaniewicz in Croydon. By the time the next census was taken, Jackson and Pauline had left the north west and were living at 33 St Mary’s Terrace in Paddington with only Pauline and Charles at home.
Jackson Townsend died in London in the summer of 1883, aged 79 years, and his wife Pauline died in Chelsea on 11 December 1895.
Their children also left Birkenhead to pursue their careers in London and abroad. Their eldest son Alfred emigrated to New Zealand and settled in Akaroa on the South Island where he worked as a solicitor until his death on 13 October 1888. Felix followed his brother to New Zealand and settled in Dunedin where he worked for the Australasian Bank. He married Isabella Burrell and they had one son, Thomas Jackson, in 1895. Only two years after his son was born, Felix died of heat apoplexy on board the Himalaya while it was at sea off the coast of Brazil. His son returned to England and was living with his brother Charles and sister Pauline in Kensington but he eventually returned to New Zealand and later settled in Queensland, Australia.
Walter also left England and settled in Toronto, Canada where he found a job as a company secretary with the Northern Railway. He married St Clair Denham and they had three daughters — Pauline, St Clair and Phyllis. The family returned to England in the 1890s and initially settled in Marylebone before Walter took a job managing a marble quarry near Stanhope in Northumberland. Walter died in Stanhope in 1905 and his wife remained in their home at Crawley Hall for a number of years before returning to London where she died in 1935.
Archibald and Horace both emigrated to New York where they worked as journalists. Archie married Lydia Mary Ash on 24 November 1890 but he died at the New York Hospital on 30 August 1891. His brother also married, on 16 July 1883, to Mary Worth in New York. Horace died in Manhattan on 9 May 1922.
Charles Harrison was a leader in the English Arts and Crafts movement and in addition to his work as an architect, he designed furniture, textiles, wallpaper and mosaics. He designed several public buildings including the Bishopsgate Institute, Whitechapel Art Gallery and the Horniman Museum as well as numerous houses and churches in the village of Blackheath in Surrey. Charles died at his home at 30 Murray Road in Northwood in 1928.
Pauline remained in London and worked for a charitable organization, Toynbee Hall, in the East End for many years. She was also a keen musician and translated a biography of Mozart from German to English and in 1884, she published her own book, an autobiography of Joseph Haydn. Neither Pauline nor her brother Charles married and in 1911, they were still living together in a house at 32 Queens Road in Marylebone. Pauline died in Bristol on 19 June 1940 and left an estate valued at £2200 to her niece St Clair Redfern Townsend. She was buried next to her brother Charles at Holy Trinity Church in Northwood near Rickmansworth.