EIGHTH GENERATION
29 May 1811 St. Matthew, Bethnal Green, London, England
5 Apr. 1828 St. Leonards, Shoreditch, London, England
(156) James and (157) Catherine were married in the church by license by Thomas Woods, in the presence of Benj_ Browning and Edw. Dobson
An Edward Dobson m. Ann Ball 28 Aug. 1794 Saint Luke Old Str., Finsbury.
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The history of weaving in Spitalfields is interesting, and tends to elucidate several of the habits existing to this day among the class. Upon the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685, numerous French artisans left their native country, and took refuge in the neighbouring states. King James II encouraged these settlers, and King William III published a proclamation, dated April 25, 1689, for the encouraging of the French Protestants to transport themselves into this kingdom, promising them his royal protection, and "to render their living here comfortable and easy to them." For a considerable time the population of Spitalfields might be considered as exclusively French; that language was universally spoken, and even within the memory of persons now living, their religious rites were performed in French, in chapels erected for that purpose... The weavers were formerly almost the only botanists in the metropolis, and their love of flowers to this day is a strangely marked characteristic of the class... Such were the Spitalfield weavers at the beginning of the [nineteenth] century, possessing tastes and following pursuits, the refinement and intelligence of which would be an honour and grace to the artisan of the present day, but which shone out with a double lustre at a time when the amusements of society were almost of a gross and brutalizing kind... [This refinement belied the humble conditions in which they lived.] "The houses of the weavers," says Dr. Gavin, in his valuable "Sanitary Ramblings," "generally consist of two rooms on the ground floor and a workroom above. The workroom always has a large window for the admission of light during their long hours of sedentary labour." Whole streets of such houses, indeed, abound in Bethnal Green, where the greater part of the population is made up of weavers. There are some, but not a great number of dwellings consisting of one room only. Such houses are always of the worst description. With a very few exceptions, the dwellings of the poor are destitute of those structural conveniences common to the better classes of houses. There are never any places set aside for receiving coals; dustbins to hold the refuse of the houses are exceedingly rare, and cupboards and closets are altogether unknown. There are never any sinks, and the fire-places are constructed without the slightest regard to the convenience or comfort of the inmates." -- http://www.davidric.dircon.co.uk/silkatti.html: by Henry Mayhew, from "London characters : illustrations of the humour, pathos, and peculiarities of London life". New edition published by Chatto and Windus, 1881. |
Browning -- This Anglo-Saxon name first appears in Cumberland.
Benj_ Browning was listed as a witness on the marriage certificate of (157) Catherine Browning.
= prob. siblings
RACINE & BROWNING LINES continued
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