Ann Edwards
James Meadows' fourth child and eldest daugher, Ann, was born in Mountnessing in about 1835. Ann married Charles Stephen Edwards (c.1831-1878) at St Dunstan's Church, Stepney on the 9th October, 1856.
In 1861, Ann and her family were living with her brother James and his family at Acton Green House. At this time, Charles Edwards was employed as a clerk at Vickers Distillers of Victoria Street Westminster (his employer until his death in 1878). However the four children of Charles and Ann were all born in Mile End or Bow, between 1858 and 1865.
Ann Edwards née Meadows
(Reproduced by kind permission of Lesley Hayward).
By the time of the 1871 census, Charles had become a corn clerk, and the family was living at 9, Tredegar Square in Bow, close to the last family home of James Meadows Snr in Coborn Street. Ann Edwards died in February 1870 at 27, Alfred Street in Bow (where her brother Edwin had lived), aged only about 35. Her funeral took place at the family church of Holy Trinity, Miled End, where her father is buried. However Charles Edwards was not left alone to raise the children, as his widowed mother-in-law, Ann Meadows (the widow of James Meadows Snr), came to live with the family at the Edwards house in Tredegar Square. Ann Meadows died at the Tredegar Square address in 1874, as did Charles Edwards four years later in 1878.
One of the executors of Charles Edwards' will was his brother-in-law, George Self, husband of Frances Amelia Meadows. Following the deaths of their parents and their grandmother, the three surviving Edwards children lived together until at least the end of the 19th century. They appeared to have remained in contact with their Meadows cousins, notably the children of Edwin and Frances Amelia Meadows.
The children and grandchildren of Ann & Charles Edwards
Charles Stanley Edwards was born in the first quarter of 1858 in Mile End New Town, became a commercial clerk. In the 1881 and 1891 censuses, he is recorded living with his sister Florence's family. In 1890, he was ther witness at the wedding of his cousin, Fanny Self. Charles himself later married, and moved to Forest Hill on the Kent-Surrey border where he died in 1921.
Jessie Ann Edwards was born c.1862 in Bow, and died in the family home in Tredegar Square in July 1872. Her funeral took place at the family church of Holy Trinity, Mile End.
Sidney James Edwards was born in 1865 in Bow. In the 1881, 1891 and 1901 censuses, he too is recorded living with his sister Florence's family. Sidney also became a commercial clerk, and in 1901 he was "secretary of a public company". In 1915 he married Edith Margaret Pearson at St Andrew's, Holborn, when his profession was recorded as a "manufacturing chemist". The couple settled in Hendon where Sidney died in 1935. The photograph below of Sidney is reproduced by kind permission of Lesley Hayward.
Florence Edwards was born in Bow in 1860, and baptised at the Meadows family church of Holy Trinity, Mile End. At the time, the Edwards family address was given as 27, Alfred Street, where her uncle Edwin Meadows lived at the time of the census in the following year.
In 1880, Florence married Herbert Walter Fairweather (born 1860 in Knightsbridge). Herbert's father had a varied career, first as an agricultural labourer in Norfolk, then as a "house steward" in Sloane Street in London, and by 1871 running a pub in Poplar. In the same year, Herbert was recorded as a pupil at Hill House Boarding School in Theydon Garnon near Epping. Like his Edwards brothers-in-law, Herbert subsequently became a corn clerk, and then a commercial clerk, and finally an accountant. Between 1881 and 1901, Herbert, Florence and their family lived in West Ham, East Ham, and Ilford close to Florence's Self cousins. They later moved to Croydon, where Florence died in 1938, and Herbert died in 1939.
Herbert and Florence had four children:
Kenneth Herbert Fairweather, (1881-1917) was born in Stratford. He became an accountant and lived in Finchley. He joined the 2/16th London Regiment as a rifleman in World War One, and was killed on active service on the 27th November 1917 in Palestine. This would suggest that he had survived the third battle of Gaza against the Turkish forces, and was advancing with his unit towards Jersualem which was liberated by the British forces on December 9th 1917.
Ethel Florence Fairweather, (1883-1964) was born in Stratford, lived at various stages with her aunt Edith Edwards in Hendon, and with her younger brothers in and around Croydon where she died in 1964.
Percy Edwards Fairweather, (1885-1956) was born in Forest Gate. In 1912 when he married Dorothy Marguerite Gostling at St Andrew's, Willesden Green, he gave his profession as "book-keeper". He later moved to Croydon.
Cecil Edgar Fairweather, (1893-1965) was born in Forest Gate. In World War One he served with the Royal Fusiliers. Cecil subsequently married and moved to Sanderstead near Croydon.
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