In the previous post I noted that, in his will of 1804, my 5 x great uncle Bowes John Gibson, a broker and auctioneer for the East India Company, mentioned three surviving children from his first marriage to Elizabeth Hendly. These were his daughter Esther, who had married mariner and shipbuilder Thomas Lay in 1790; his son John Thomas, who would marry Henrietta Elizabeth Horn in 1811; and another son, George Milsom Gibson. Both sons would serve as army officers in India, and George would die there in 1814, at the age of 32. I’ve found no further records for Thomas and Esther Lay, after the births of their two sons, Bowes John and William Henry Lay, in 1792 and 1797 respectively.
The East India Company, by Thomas Rowlandson (1808)
As for the children of Bowes John’s second marriage to Mary Catherine Bretman, the latter’s will of 1826 mentions Edward, Emily, William Henry, Elizabeth, Matilda Henrietta and Bowes Charles. We know that another son, James Charles Gibson, had died in 1819, at the age of 19: he was buried in Chelsea, so I assume he was living there at the time. We also have to assume that Eliza, born in 1798, had predeceased her mother.
As for William Henry Gibson, someone with that name was buried at the Wesleyan Burial Ground in Globe Fields, Stepney, on 12 December 1830. He was 28 when he died, making him the same age as the son of Bowes John and Mary Catherine, and his address was said to be Charles Street, just a short distance from the original Gibson family home in Mile End Old Town. If this is the right person, then presumably he had undergone a Methodist conversion in his youth, leading him to depart from the staunchly Anglican habits of his family.
Barnsbury Square, Islington
I’ve written before about Bowes Charles Gibson, the youngest child of the family, who died in 1837 at the age of 24. When he died he was living in Barnsbury Square, Islington. Bowes Charles left everything to his sister Matilda Henrietta, who I believe lived at the same address. She was certainly resident in Barnsbury Square, with a female servant, at the time of the 1841 census. Matilda died four years later, at the age of 32.
I’ve failed to find any further reference to Edward Gibson, who would have been 24 years old when his mother died in 1826. Someone with the same name was buried at St Dunstan’s, Stepney, in 1842, though he was said to have been born in 1796.
That leaves Elizabeth and Emily, who would have been 23 and 21 years old respectively when their mother died. I plan to revisit what we know of their adult lives, as well as that of their half-brother John Thomas Gibson and his family, in future posts.
