To have a large family in Georgian and Victorian times is something of a regular occurrence, but I should imagine that to have fathered two large families in succession, so that the births ran into the twenties would be somewhat unusual.  Such is the lot of my great great great grandfather, the Reverend Oliver Lodge.

The first family were all born in Ireland of Oliver’s second wife Anna Butler (his first wife Dorcas Crommie died childless shortly after marriage).  The second family were born to his third wife Anne Supple, and might well have been raised in Ireland had it not been for insecurity created by of the rising of 1798. 

My knowledge of Oliver’s first family is somewhat thin although some of them do appear in the English Census records, apparently following their father to England.  For the purposes of my story I shall start with Oliver’s second family.  Anne Supple and Oliver were married in Cashel in Ireland and enjoyed a brief time in Athy and Dublin, before deciding that Ireland was no longer a safe place to bring up a family.  Previously, Oliver had been curate of Kilcooly, Queen’s County, which sort of came with his

dowry in his first marriage to a wealthy landowner’s daughter, along with various lands and tenants.  The rebellion resulted in the murder of a neighbouring landowner, and Oliver was moved to allow the militia onto his land to find the perpetrators.  He, his family and his tenants were subject to much intimidation, and in the same rising, his brother was murdered by his father’s tenants. This caused the move to Athy and then to Dublin, but even then this was thought not to be secure enough for Oliver and his new bride.

He initially accepted a curacy in Deptford, before moving to Barking where he remained curate for many years.  It was here that many of the children of his second family were born.  What ever wealth Oliver had as the middle son of a wealthy farmer and landowner, and through his various marriages seems to have dissipated through his large family, and the pressure of living on the meagre means as a curate.  He tells a story remembering these times which is recorded at a parish meeting much later in life.

My own direct ancestor, Robert John Lodge was born in 1810 along with his twin Jeremiah as the second oldest in the family.  The first, Barton Lodge, was probably named after Joanna Barton, Oliver’s mother.  He also followed his father into the clergy, becoming in time rector of St Mary Magdalen Colchester.  From his record in Crockfords, he seems to have ranged as far away as Buenos Aires.  This kind of global roaming becomes a hallmark of the family, mirroring closely the fortunes of the British Empire.  It also provides the background from which my own branch of the family prospered. 

It seems the children were encouraged to make their own way in the world.  Robert John became involved with marine insurance becoming a secretary and later manager of the Marine Insurance Company in Broad Street.  His brother Jeremiah spent time as a Mathematics Master and became an Actuary, and continued in this profession even when he lost his sight in middle age.

It is known that Jeremiah was not the first child of this name born to Oliver Lodge.  Another Jeremiah died in infancy in the first family, so it appears that this was some kind of important family name.  Likewise the name Oliver was held onto tenaciously in a way that we would find strange today.  An Oliver died aged 22 in the Irish family, as well as

an infant first born of the second family.  Oliver senior’s twentieth child would also be called Oliver, and by way of justifying this dogged perseverance in the face of adversity, lived to some age in Staffordshire, himself fathering Oliver Joseph Lodge, perhaps the most famous descendent of this vast family.  Oliver Joseph was an academic, physicist, radio pioneer, inventor of the spark plug and founder of the society for Psychical research.

Older than the Staffordshire Oliver, but younger than their brothers Barton, Jeremiah and Robert John were the three brothers Francis Wilkins, Peter and Charles Lodge.  Peter, a mariner, died at sea according to tradition.  Francis Wilkins however continued the seafaring tradition as Captain of ships including the Eleanor Lancaster, assisting many Britons and Irish to emigrate to India, Australia and the Americas.  Indeed for a time he settled out there himself before returning to live in Manacan in Cornwall.  Charles was the medic of the family, studying for his MD at St Andrews University and becoming an MRCS.  He lived for some time in some comfort in the growing hamlet of Peckham before he too emigrated to New York and then Australia. 

A younger brother, Edward Thomas Lodge may well also have emigrated with his family sometime after the 1861 census as all are absent from the subsequent English records.  Whilst in Britain, he is down as a Stockbroker and Actuary.

The Clergy tradition was continued in the last of the sons, Samuel, who came to Lincolnshire as a curate teaching at the Grammar School in Louth and becoming Headmaster to the Grammar School in Horncastle.  He spent many years as Rector of Scrivelsby, and there wrote a history of his patrons the Dymokes, the Queen’s Champions.  He was also prebendary of Lincoln Cathedral.

The academic concerns of the family appear to have been significant.  The Revd. Oliver Lodge promoted Sunday schools within Barking as well as becoming headmaster of Barking School.  In time his labours as curate did not go unheeded and his parishioners wrote, recommending him for a benefice in his own right:

When we look back to the state in which our Parish was when our Reverend friend first came among us, in the vigour of his life, and contrast therewith its present condition, and in particular when we recollect that to his exertions in promoting religious education to the poor, the extraordinary increase in the number of children receiving gratuitous instruction in our Parish , from 40 to nearly 400, is mainly attributable, we cannot but regret, now that he is leaving us in his honourable old age, that we have not the means of alleviating the cares of his declining years, enhanced as we fear they must be by the claims of his numerous family.

Eventually he was installed as Rector of Elsworth, a rural parish in Cambridgeshire not far from Papworth.  It is here in 1841 as the census records begin that we at last find Oliver with his third wife Anne and their fifteen year old daughter Theodosia Louisa F (known as Fanny).

At the time of the 1841 census, many of the members of Oliver’s second family are well established in their own right.  The eldest, Barton was now 33 as a curate in Theydon Bois in Essex, married to Louisa Smee who was born in Bombay in India.  They are without children, and it appears that they remained this way.  Crockford’s tells us that in the next year he takes up a chaplaincy in Buenos Aires, from which he returns to appear in the census of 1851 as curate of St Mary Magdalen in Colchester.   At that time, he and his wife have a “protégé” Frederick Lewis Lodge aged 6 born in Buenos Aires.  I have yet to trace the story here, but Frederick seems to prosper, and by the time of the 1901 census he is a retired stock farmer living in Bedford with his own wife and three children, born in Uruguay.

The next eldest of Oliver’s children were the twins Jeremiah and my Great Great grandfather Robert John, born in 1810. In 1841 Jeremiah Lodge is unmarried, living in Greenwich up Royal Hill whereas Robert Lodge is living in Tredegar Square Stepney with his growing family.  This location would not be far from his work in the city as secretary to the Marine Insurance Company and close to the commercial centre of the Pool of London, where some £70,000,000 worth of merchandise were shipped and unshipped, making it very much the mercantile capital of the world at that time. 

Robert’s wife, Mary Ann was of the Soutter family who were ship owners in Shadwell and whose fortunes are interconnected with that of the Lodge family.  We can get some impression of Robert Lodge’s work from the entry in Boase’s Modern English Biography:

With further research it seems that the salvage of both the named ships involved gold.  The Royal Charter came to grief on its way back to Liverpool from the Australian goldfields in 1859.  Passengers who tried to jump into the sea with pockets filled with gold soon found that this was no aid to buoyancy and that they would have to relinquish their treasure or else follow it to the bottom. 

Likewise the Alphonso XII was a Spanish ship which sunk in 1885 off Grand Canary.   The recovery of the cargo of gold was more difficult, and the diver Alexander Lambert set a record for the depth of his dives, performing something of a superhuman effort in his work.

For 1841 and 1851 the next youngest brother Francis Wilkins Lodge is not to be found in the English census record.  At this period he was in the prime of his rather colourful maritime career.  It is particularly at this point that one should acknowledge the stirling efforts of family researchers whose families emigrated to the New World.  It is their accounts that shed the most light on this episode in the Lodge family. It would be useful here to pause my own account and insert unabridged the work that appears from the internet.

http://www.playford.info/playfordmain.html

Evidently this rather spectacularly unfortunate event did not curtail Francis Wilkins Lodge’s maritime career as the next record, again from the internet, shows him once more in the same trade.

http://www.rootsweb.com/~austas/royalsaxon.htm

These pages are Copyright ©1999 'TasmaniaGenWeb'.Last Updated: 19 October 1999  

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We know that from 1845-1853, he was master of the barque the Eleanor Lancaster which was owned by S & C Soutter (later Soutter & Co)(Robert John’s inlaws).  This ship sailed for Port Philip in 1845, Lima in 1846 and Sydney between 1847-1853.  The Sydney Herald of September 1^st tells us that it made an excellent passage of 101 days, and as the mail packet brought 22 bags of mail.  Another 71 day voyage is recorded in 1849 leaving Sydney for San Francisco (from the Australian goldfields to those of the American West).  Here the crew deserted the ship (a common occurrence apparently) leaving Francis Wilkins to use the ship in the Sacramento River as a grog shop “hospital” and bonded store ship.

The Cyclopaedia of Western Australia tells us that he became one of the early settlers of the Newcastle district of New South Wales, marrying his first wife the daughter of Major Crummer, and holding the position of assistant magistrate. In this he was something of a trail blazer for the Lodge family as children of four different sons of Oliver Lodge ended up settling in Australia at a later date.

Francis Wilkins did not himself remain in Australia, as he was recalled to England to take up the duties of salver to the Marine Insurance Company and was involved in salvage for the shipwrecks of the “Golden Gate” the “Hamilla Mitchel” the “Schiller” whose stories are just as interesting as those of the Royal Charter and the Alphonso XII.  He chooses to settle in Manacan in Cornwall, marrying once again having two sons Frank and George Henry both of whom later emigrated to Australia and having their own families out there.

My great grandfather’s fortunes can be seen visibly to increase through the census records.  As we have seen in 1841 he is living in Stepney with his sons Robert and Oliver (another one for the family collection) who are 2 and 1 respectively and two daughters, Mary Ann aged 4 and Fanny aged 3.  By 1851 he has moved to 3 Holly Terrace, Highgate.  Fanny and Annie (Mary Anne) are at school in Stanstead Kent, and Robert jr. and Oliver are joined by my great grandfather Frank aged 9, William Whitbourne aged 7 (named after Francis Whitbourne, a Barking Landowner who is Robert’s Brother in Law). Sylvia 6, Edith 4, Julia 3 Helen 1 and Theophilus Barnard aged 3 months nearly complete this large family.  Also staying with him is Catherine A Lodge aged 49, listed as Robert’s sister.  In fact she is his half sister from the Irish family and is described as an Annuitant.

In 1861 Robert John’s large family are installed in the handsome 1830s house, no7 The Grove Highgate where they will live for four decades.  This house is to become something of a focus in Lodge family life, attracting various cousins with its central position.  Present in 1861 are his daughter Fanny who at 23 is now married to a Mr Basessi who it describes as a Civil Service Clerk.  Robert Lodge aged 22 has followed his father into the Insurance business, as has William Whitbourne aged 17.   Edith is 14, Julia 13 and Oliver aged 20 is home from Pembroke College Oxford where he is perhaps studying law (this is his last appearance in the English Census before he reappears again in 1901 as head of a new family in Canterbury).  The younger boys, Theophilus now 10 and Robert Soutter, just 8 are away at a school in Colchester (perhaps monitored by the Revd. Barton Lodge), leaving Alice aged 7 still at home.

Robert’s twin Jeremiah in 1851 is head of his own household at 7 Waterloo Place as an Actuary of a Life Insurance Company.  With him is his now widowed mother (since the Revd. Oliver died in 1845) who is described as an annuitant.  Also in the London area, in Kensington is John Butler Lodge and his wife Helen.   John Butler Lodge is one of the Irish children of the Revd. Oliver Lodge and his second wife, Anna Butler.  He seems to have come over to England earlier, appearing as an MP in Hurstpierpoint in Sussex.  At that point, he was single, but by 1851 he had married a widow with a British Army pension, and he is described as a fundholder.  His address in 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition, must have been an enviable one

By 1861, Anne Lodge, widow of the Revd. Oliver Lodge, was head of her own household in  at 5 Ampthill square Marylebone London.  There is nothing left of this house in what was perhaps a moderately genteel area just near Camden Town, close to Mornington Crescent.  Now the area is taken up by a problematic high rise estate at Somers Town on the Eversholt Road.  Jeremiah Lodge did not live to see this change, but then even living with his mother at this address it is unlikely that he would have seen anything at all at this time.  He became known as the Blind Actuary in the City, and despite his disability, his advice was very much valued by colleagues.  It is probable that his unmarried sister Theodosia Louisa Frances (who was known as Fanny) is also at Ampthill Square to care for him.

There are two other brothers with their own households in London, Charles and Edward Thomas Lodge.   In 1841, Charles the Surgeon is with his wife Catherine and their young son Oliver Edward in 21 South Street Rye Lane Peckham.  This child dies in infancy and is not to be found in the subsequent censuses. Also with Charles and his wife is his younger brother of 15, Oliver.  He is listed as a surgeon’s apprentice, although this clearly did not come to anything as Oliver’s next move was to Staffordshire.  Charles and Catherine are still at the same address in 1851, now with two more children, Charles Edward aged 5 and Florence aged 3, with the various trappings that their prosperity brings the (Cook, Nurse, Coachman and Housemaid).  All of this is to change in 1861 when we find Catherine, still listed as married, living with Charles Edward and Florence without Charles senior living  at 1  Red Berry Grove,  Sydenham, Kent.  There is but one general servant listed with her, and Catherine’s occupation is now given as “private tuition” and this is verified by a number of pupils from another family (Agnes, Amy and Edith Laing from Colchester) living with her. 

Other research on the web has Charles marrying again to a Sarah Katherine Bunn (b. 1822 Tilmanstone Kent), and emigrating to New York to start a new family.  In 1851 Sarah Katherine was herself married to a Bank of England Clerk, John Beard.  Four children are listed  John, Theresa, Catherine and Gertrude, but by 1861  these children and John, (now listed as unmarried) are living with their Beard Grandparents.  With this record, and that of Catherine Lodge and her family, it is not hard to make certain surmises.

It is said that Charles joined the British Merchant Marine, then settled in New York with Sarah Katherine.  He apparently served on the Union side of American Civil War for New York 74th Regiment as assistant surgeon.  Sarah Katherine and he had four further children, born in New York State; Geraldine, born 1854, Malcolm Arthur, born 1857, Walter Charles Ashton, born 1858 and Millicent Pauline born 1864.  The sons both subsequently emigrated to New South Wales, whilst Milicent married in New York where her descendents thrived.

Charles died suddenly of heart disease in London, England, 8 days after arriving on the City of New York steam ship to Liverpool on February 22, 1868.

The whole of Edward Thomas Lodge’s family disappears from the English Census after 1861, so we can assume that they too emigrated as did so many others in the family.  As is often the case when two first names are listed, it seems that the second name is often the one used, and this appears to be the case from his listing as a pupil of Christ’s Hospital School at its old site in London in 1841.  For 1851 Edward Thomas and his wife Elizabeth live at with their two children Elizabeth A.R. (aged 2) and nine month old Arthur Edward.  Edward Thomas is listed as a Stockbroker here and in 1861 when he has moved to Dawson House, Dawson Place Kensington he is an Actuary to the London… some other words which are very hard to decipher.  There are two other children here, Philippa M. and Louisa J., but Arthur Edward has to be found in Lincolnshire, Boarding at his Uncle Samuel’s Grammar School in Horncastle.

According to the book of Horncastle, by David Robinson, Samuel Lodge was responsible for the addition of a classroom, the school library and the boarding wing added to the Head’s house.  Whilst the last in these moves is in line with education in a rural area, and a need to be competitive with the growing movement of National and Wesleyan Schools, one wonders if he did not also have an eye to the education of his own plentiful offspring and those of his many brothers and sisters!  We know that Richard Lodge, son of the Staffordshire brother Oliver received some education there, and by all accounts Samuel upheld the maxim of “spare the rod and spoil the child” especially when it came to taking his young nephew down a peg or two in presuming that he could spell any word in the English language (although the word for which he was thrashed was in fact one with an accepted variation).  Nevertheless he did broaden the school’s curriculum with the introduction of new subjects such as sacred and profane history.  He held the post of Headmaster from 1854 to 1870 which seems a reasonably respectable period of time, but it was as a Clergyman that his longevity of service is to be noted.  As Headmaster in 1861, the census also states that he is curate of the small village of Mareham on the Hill.

It gives some sense of perspective looking at the census records for this period, 1841-1861 when you realise that at the beginning of this segment of history, the Revd. Oliver’s youngest child Samuel was just a pupil of 12 at Huntingdon Grammar School, and yet by the end of it he is a Headmaster with a growing family of seven children.  These are Reginald Badham, 8, Herbert B., 6, Walter Macnamara, 5, Francis Wheatley, 4, Nora M, 2, Clara 1, and infant George Edward.  In the same way, the twentieth child of the Reverend Oliver Lodge,

the Oliver that we noted as Surgeon’s apprentice with his brother Charles in 1841, by 1861 has a family of five children.

Oliver Junior’s family was known to the rest of the Lodge family as the Staffordshire Ollies, which is a soubriquet worth adopting in this large and contorted family.  The move to Staffordshire came about with the decision that medicine was not a suitable career for Oliver.  Instead, he came up to Staffordshire as a hardworking Clerk to a Railway Company there, and this is his occupation in 1851 when he appears at Penkhull, with his wife Grace and his Oxford Undergraduate brother Samuel.  As is often the case it was family connections that brought Oliver and his wife together.  Their granddaughter Margaret tells us in her book that at one stage Jeremiah Lodge was a mathematics master at Lucton School in Herefordshire. Its headmaster was the Reverend Joseph Heath, father of a large family.  When he died leaving his family rather impoverished, his widow went to live at Bromley in Kent so that her daughters could attend the Clergy Orphan School.  Jeremiah kept in touch with the family, and it was in this way Oliver and Grace met.

Apparently the Heaths were a bright family for Oliver’s children did rather well academically.  Oliver Joseph is the obvious successful example, but one brother Albert became a respected Mathematician, yet another brother Richard became first Professor of Modern History at Edinburgh University and fellow of Brasenose Oxford and their sister Eleanor Constance became vice-principal of Lady Margaret Hall Oxford.   In 1861 Only Oliver Joseph aged 9 is at school, in Newport Shropshire which for him was a surprisingly short career, since his father, now self employed as an agent in pottery clay was keen to enlist as much family help in the business as possible rather than employing outsiders. In fact it is said that he favoured a rather Spartan upbringing for his children, encouraging independence and discouraging displays of emotion. The other children are Henry aged 8, Alfred 7, and Francis Heaward aged 3.  In time, he would marry his first cousin Clara, Samuel’s daughter.  Richard, aged 5, the middle child in this family is with his grandmother Mary Heath in Bromley, who is very influential in his early education.

The family between 1871 and 1901  

Not far from where the M11 ends, off the road to Huntingdon, lies the quiet village of Elsworth in Cambridgeshire.  Its church is a modest one, and its graveyard is tidy, with many gravestones removed for ease of maintenance.  One or two gravestones, however, are still in situ, and round the back of the church, close to the eastern wall can be found the grave of the Reverend Oliver Lodge who died in 1845 and his wife Anne who died in London in 1867.  There too, close by, is the final resting place of their son, the twin Jeremiah who just fails to make it into the 1871 census.  This gravestone is scarcely legible, and presents a small enigma, since in the same grave is buried a George Lodge, who dies in 1887 aged 28.  It may be assumed that this would be Jeremiah’s son, but he is extremely difficult to find in any of the census records.  Re-evaluating the evidence, there is a daughter in law, Emilia Helena Lodge, residing in Ampthill Square with Jeremiah and his mother in 1861, although it is difficult to make out from the handwriting of the recorder whether Jeremiah is married or not.

There is a more tangible record of the death of Jeremiah in the tower of the church, and the Elsworth and Knapwell Chronicle for 1869 and 1870

Elsworth 28th August Restoration of Church Tower.

The parishioners have been invited to meet in vestry at the Rectory House, to accept and acknowledge the proposal of the family of the late Mr. Jeremiah Lodge, son of the late Rev. Oliver Lodge, for some time rector of this parish, to present and to erect a new and handsome clock in the tower of Elsworth Church, and to consider also the repairs and restoration required to make the tower fit for the reception of the same. We understand that the parishioners, rector, and others have promised upwards of one hundred pounds towards the restoration fund.

Elsworth 12th March Church Tower.

A few weeks back, a subscription was set on foot by the Rev. J. R. Dobson, rector, in aid of the restoration of the Church tower, and we understand that upwards of £200 has been promised towards making the same fit for the reception of a new and handsome clock, the gift of the Lodge family, in memory of their late brother, Jeremiah Lodge, Esq. It is proposed by the Committee appointed to erect new pinnacles and restore the parapet, to erect a new door and steps leading up to the bell chamber, a new west door and window, and to otherwise restore the tower. The contract has been taken by Mr. Hodson, of Elsworth, and Mr. Saint, stonemason, of St. Ives.

Barton Lodge and his wife Louisa appear for the last time in the census of 1871 at the Rectory of St. Margaret’s Colchester, as they too die shortly afterwards, Louisa in 1873 and Barton in 1877.  Jeremiah’s twin, my great great grandfather is still very much alive at 7 the Grove, Highgate with his family burgeoning into further generations, although there are quite a few unmarried daughters in the family.  These include Silvia, 26,  Edith, 24, Julia, 23 and Ellen, 21.  Theophilus, 20 is also unmarried and is listed as a Solicitor’s Clerk.  Although the Grove seems to be fairly full with so many family members there are still some notable absences. 

Robert’s eldest daughter Mary is, as we have seen previously, established with her own family of seven children with her husband, Brewer Henry Morgan.  Their address is the Norwich suburb of Bracondale.  Neighbours are the famous Norwich publisher Samuel Jarrold, but more significantly for the family history is the recently deceased local rector Johnathan Chase Matchett.  It must be assumed that Mary’s brother, my great grandfather Frank met this family through his sister and in 1866 he married Johnathan Matchett’s daughter Emma Gordon Matchett.  At this time Frank was an officer in the Royal Artillery and shortly afterwards was posted to India, for it is there, in Bombay that my Grandfather was born in 1867.

The eldest of Robert’s sons is still unmarried in 1871, and is listed as assistant secretary to the Marine Insurance Company, where his father is Manager.  He is staying with his uncle Francis Whitbourne, a Landowner at Loxford Hall Barking, which may have been more convenient for trips into the city.  Of his brother Oliver, ther is no visible record although his wife (described as a barrister’s wife) and family of three children are living at 61 Russell Square Bloomsbury.  Likewise William W. Lodge is to be found listed as a Member of Lloyds at Finchley with his wife Margaret.

out from the handwriting of the recorder whether Jeremiah is married or not.