Contents
Shelley & her brother Generation 0
The focus of this tree. Born in Southampton at the end of the Thatcher era, into a family that had only recently arrived in Hampshire from the Midlands.
Shelley's older brother by just over two years. Birth registered in Q1 1988 with mother's maiden name Drummond — confirming the link, even though the family no longer lives in the registration district where the birth was logged.
Her parents — a Coventry boy meets a London girl Generation 1
Brian was born in Meriden, Warwickshire — the village that traditionally claims the geographic centre of England. His parents had married twelve years earlier in Coventry. He took his middle name from his father, James Kenneth Longden. Adult life took him to Hampshire — Emsworth, Havant, eventually the Isle of Wight where he lives today.
Janet was the youngest of three Drummond siblings born in north London — Margaret (1946) and John (1948) had come first. The family was in Edmonton/Enfield throughout her childhood. She married Brian and the couple were briefly in Northampton in 1988 (where Stuart was registered) before settling in Hampshire by Shelley's birth in 1990.
Brian and Janet's marriage joined two very different geographic streams: the Longden / Tedd line is rooted in the West Midlands industrial belt — Coventry, Meriden, Atherstone — while the Drummond / Barwick line is solidly central and north London, with deep roots in the Holborn–Strand–Drury Lane triangle going back to the Georgian era.
Grandparents Generation 2
Paternal — the Longden / Tedd marriage of 1941
The paternal grandfather. He married Florence May Tedd in April–June 1941, Coventry — wartime Britain, just months after the Coventry Blitz had flattened much of the city centre on 14 November 1940. Brian was born twelve years later. Family lore notes that James was later "with someone called Anne" who was not the bloodline grandmother — possibly his second marriage in 1978 to Margaret A Hornsby, also in Coventry.
Born just a month after the 1921 Census recorded her family at 2 Court 2 House, Cox Street, Coventry — a "court" being the typical industrial-era Coventry courtyard cottage, two-up-two-down behind the main street. Her father Tom worked as a Capstan Lathe Hand Setter Up. Florence died in Nuneaton aged 52, only seven years before Shelley's father Brian married Janet.
Maternal — Edmonton-born Drummonds & Kentish Barwicks
Born in Holborn, central London, into a Drummond family already three generations deep in the area around Drury Lane and St Giles. Lived most of his adult life in Edmonton.
The maternal grandmother brings a different geography into the tree — the Barwicks and Harveys come from Kent (St Peters and Waltham). Winifred was born in Edmonton but her parents had migrated up to north London by then.
Tom Tedd — boxer, performer, grieving father Coventry, b. 1892
A man who first appears in the local press as a child performer in Christmas concerts, and last as a young father at his baby's inquest. The Coventry papers carried his name from age 10 to age 22.
The boy entertainer (1902–1904)
By the time he was 10, Tom Tedd was already a regular on the Coventry parish-hall entertainment circuit — performing alongside his older brother Harry Tedd and a regular cast of locals like the Elson brothers, the Tods and Walter Jackson.
"Songs, etc. were given by Mr. Jones, Messrs. Jno. Tod, Jas. Tod, D. Sidwell, Tom Tedd, and a nigger troupe. A dialogue followed, entitled 'Yule Tide,' parts being taken, among others, by Messrs. J. Tod, G. Elson…"
Note on the language: "nigger troupe" referred to blackface minstrel shows, a hugely popular and widely-tolerated form of working-class entertainment in Edwardian Britain. The casual use of the term in a community newspaper is distressing today but historically commonplace.
"The Fat Judge, Mr. George Elson; Mr. Pimple (the lawyer), Mr. Ernest Elson; Blazes (the policeman), Harry Tedd; Mike Dolan (the urchin), Tom Tedd; The Walter, Walter Jackson; Pimple's Mother-in-Law, William Riley. For an hour it was one roar of laughter…"
Tom (aged 11) played the urchin Mike Dolan in a Christmas farce. His older brother Harry played the policeman.
The amateur boxer (1914)
Twelve years later, the same Tom Tedd had moved up from the boys' Christmas show into the boxing ring. The Coventry press covered amateur boxing extensively in the years before the First World War.
"The contest between Frank and Tom Tedds (Coventry) was a spirited affair, especially after the referee had exhorted the contestants to 'have more of a box or get out of the ring.' Morcambe's ring-craft was expected to pull him through, but Tedd was frequently forcing…"
So Shelley's great-grandfather was an amateur boxer in the Edwardian Coventry boxing scene — and one with enough force in his punches that he was making the more skilled boxer (Morcambe) work hard. The match was reported with the slight tut of a referee having to remind both fighters not to brawl.
★ The 1913 inquest — the baby Tom Tedd Tragedy
Earlier in 1914 — actually in March of the previous year — Tom Tedd had appeared in the Coventry papers in much sadder circumstances. He was a young father, aged about 21. He and his wife Florence (née Barker) had a baby boy, also named Tom, who died at three weeks old.
"On Monday afternoon, Dr. C. W. Iliffe conducted an inquiry at the City Sessional Court touching the death of a three-weeks-old child named Tom Tedd, son of Tom and Florence Tedd, of 2c. 2h., Cox Street. The mother…"
The address — 2 Court 2 House, Cox Street — is exactly the same address recorded for the family in the 1921 census, eight years later. The "Children and Cots" was a recurring inquest format in that period dealing with the very common Edwardian working-class tragedy of overlaying — infants suffocating in shared adult beds. Cot-death awareness was decades away. The Coventry Coroner Dr. C. W. Iliffe held inquests of this kind regularly.
The 1921 census family — William (b. 1912), Doris (1917), James (1919), and our Florence May (1921) — does not list this baby Tom because he had died. He was the family's second child: William was already a year old when baby Tom was born and lost. Florence Sr. would have been 21; Tom 21. They went on to have four more children. Florence May, Shelley's grandmother, was the youngest and was named after her mother.
So when Tom Tedd stepped into a Coventry boxing ring in April 1914 — about a year after the inquest — he was a young man who had buried a son named after himself, and who would soon be raising a houseful of children through the First World War. That is who was throwing the punches.
What he did for a living
By 1921 (when he was 29 and head of the Cox Street household with five children) the census recorded his occupation as "Capstan Lathe Hand Setter Up" — a skilled metalworker who set up the production lathes that fed Coventry's bicycle, motorcycle and motor-car factories. The Tedds were therefore industrial Coventry personified — court-yard cottages, courts and factories.
James Henry Barker — stonemason & convict Coventry, 1860–1911
Florence May Tedd's grandfather on her mother's side. The Coventry papers from 1900 to 1901 reveal a far darker figure than any other ancestor in the tree.
Occupation: Stonemason / Mason. Lived in court housing — 12 Court, Far Gosford Street (1900) and 3 Court 2 House, Grove Street (1901). Father of Emma Burbridge Nevill's children, including Florence Tedd née Barker (Shelley's great-grandmother). Died age 52 at London Road, Coventry. So far so respectable. Then you read the Coventry papers from July 1900.
★ Imprisoned for assaulting his daughter Scandal
"James Henry Barker, 12 court, house, Far Gosford Street, did not come up when his name was called, he being summoned by his daughter, Beatrice E. Barker, for assaulting her. Complainant said the assault…"
"James Henry Barker, 12c., Far Gosford Street, was charged with failing to appear to a summons for assaulting his daughter, aged seventeen…"
"James Henry Barker, mason, 12c. Far Gosford St., was charged with failing to appear to summons for assaulting his daughter… He was committed to prison for fourteen days."
So he was sent to prison for two weeks in the summer of 1900 for assaulting his teenage daughter Beatrice — and only after he had already been hauled before the magistrates a second time for failing to turn up when summoned the first time. He showed contempt for the court as well as for his daughter.
Drink and threats, October 1901 Scandal
A year out of prison, the same Coventry magistrates' court was hearing more about him. By now the family had moved to 3 Court 2 House, Grove Street.
"James Henry Barker, a stonemason, living at court, 2 house, Grove Street, was summoned by Clara Davis, a neighbour, for threats…"
"James Henry Barker, stonemason, 3c. 2h., Grove Street, was charged with being drunk and disorderly… The Constable said he found the man in Payne's Lane…"
The death notice (1911)
"Barker. — James Henry Barker, London Road, aged 52 years."
He had moved to London Road by 1911. Aged 52 — exactly matching the tree's birth year of 1860.
James Henry Barker is the closest thing to a villain in this tree. The Coventry papers paint a picture of a man with a drinking problem, a temper, a violent hand against his own teenage daughter, and at least three police-court appearances in 16 months. The court housing he lived in — narrow blind-back two-up-two-downs accessed through a covered entry, packed eight-to-ten houses to a court — was Coventry's worst working-class accommodation, and a famously rough environment. His daughter Beatrice would have been one of Florence Barker's older sisters.
Other great-grandparents Generation 3
Tom Tedd's wife. Daughter of James Henry Barker (above) and Emma Burbridge Nevill. So Florence May Tedd's grandfather on her mother's side was the prison-going stonemason. Florence Sr. was listed in 1921 as "Home Duties" — running the house and minding her children. Per a record hint, her full maiden name was Florence Minett Barker.
Born in the Strand. The fourth-generation Drury Lane Drummond. His children were born variously in Drury Lane, Holborn and St Pancras. The Drury Lane Drummonds were a long, persistent London family — staying in or near the same square mile for the entire 19th century.
Daughter of George Murray (1848–1926, City of London → Holborn) and Sarah Cooper. Died young — only 35 — leaving William and several young children including Frederick (Shelley's grandfather), born 1910 when Emma was 33.
St Peters is a parish on the Isle of Thanet, near Broadstairs and Margate — coastal east Kent. The Barwicks moved up to Edmonton, north London, where William's daughter Winifred was born in 1914.
Waltham is a small village on the Kent Downs south-west of Canterbury. Winifred Fanny carried her name forward — she lent the "Winifred" to her daughter (the maternal grandmother).
Great-great-grandparents — eight Victorians Generation 4
All born within five years of each other (1848–1861), they make up the Victorian core of Shelley's tree — half in Coventry, half in central London.
| Person | Born | Died | Occupation / notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| William Tedd | 5 Jan 1860, Coventry | 5 Apr 1899, Coventry | Died age 39 — relatively young |
| Hannah Selina Cooke | 19 Nov 1859, Coventry | 25 Jun 1940, Coventry | Outlived William by 41 years; saw the start of WWII |
| James Henry Barker ★ | July 1860, Coventry | January 1911, Coventry | Stonemason; jailed 14 days 1900 for assaulting daughter Beatrice; convicted of drunkenness 1901 — see deep-dive section |
| Emma Burbridge Nevill | Jan 1861, Bitteswell, Leics. | April 1914, Coventry | Married into the Coventry Barker family — must have endured the 1900–1901 troubles |
| William Turnour Drummond | 29 Aug 1856, Southwark | 18 Sep 1935, Shoreditch | Both his birth and death in inner-London riverside parishes |
| Isabella Ann East | 30 Nov 1855, St Giles | January 1890, St Giles | Lived 34 years in the same parish she was born in |
| George Murray | 14 Nov 1848, City of London | March 1926, Holborn | Outlived his wife Sarah by 4 years |
| Sarah Cooper | 23 Oct 1851, St Clement | September 1922, Holborn | Born St Clement Danes; classic Strand parish |
The pattern leaps off the table: Coventry stays in Coventry, and central London stays in central London. Of the eight, Isabella Ann East is the most striking — born and died in the same parish (St Giles in the Fields, just north of Covent Garden) without ever, as far as we know, leaving it.
★ The Dalton burglary of 1802 Old Bailey, t18021027-125
When Hephzibah Dalton was four years old, her father Joseph Dalton came home to find a stranger had broken into the house and was being chased into the dock at the Old Bailey. The trial papers survive in full.
"871. ROBERT WILSON was indicted for feloniously stealing, on the 5th of October, in the dwelling-house of Joseph Dalton, two coats, value 15s. a pair of breeches, value 12s. a waistcoat, value 3s. one pound eighteen shillings in monies numbered, and two Bank-notes, value 2l. the property of Robert Wilson. The prosecutor not being able to identify the property, the prisoner was ACQUITTED."
The defendant — Robert Wilson — shared a name with the prosecutor whose belongings he was alleged to have stolen. (Possibly the trial misnames the prosecutor; possibly two unrelated Robert Wilsons.) Either way, the basic facts are: in October 1802, Joseph Dalton's London dwelling-house was broken into, and a man's clothes, cash and bank notes were taken.
This is direct documentary evidence that, by 1802, Joseph Dalton (Hephzibah's father, and Shelley's 5x great-grandfather) was a London householder solid enough that a fellow lodger or visitor was keeping his entire wardrobe and savings in the house. The acquittal turned on a technicality — the prosecutor couldn't pick out his own clothes — but the burglary itself wasn't disputed.
Earlier ancestors Generations 5–7
Hephzibah Dalton — Drury Lane Nonconformist London
Possibly the most colourful name in the tree. Hephzibah is a Hebrew Bible name (2 Kings 21:1; Isaiah 62:4) meaning "my delight is in her" — a marker of a Nonconformist Protestant household, typically Baptist, Methodist or Independent chapel. Her parents Joseph Dalton (the householder above) and Mary Ann Haines followed the same naming pattern.
Hephzibah was baptised at age 1½ (29 Sep 1799) — a delayed Anglican baptism characteristic of Dissenter-leaning families who only used the parish church reluctantly. She married William Frederick Drummond at St Anne's, Westminster on 7 March 1824. They had at least four sons: William John, Thomas, Frederick James and Napoleon Drummond — the last a wonderful Bonaparte-era choice.
Her census appearances are wonderful — the enumerators couldn't spell her name. She appears as "Heyzinah Drummond" in 1841 and "Kesrah Drummond" in 1851, before settling as "Hepzibah" in 1861. She lived almost her entire adult life around St Giles in the Fields, St Martin in the Fields, and Drury Lane. She died at 70 Drury Lane aged 76, and is buried at West Brompton Cemetery.
Mary Ann Haines — death in the workhouse
Mary Ann Haines (Hephzibah's mother), born about 1766 in St Martins, married Joseph Dalton — and died aged about 76 in the Castle Street workhouse, St Martin in the Fields, on 2 April 1842.
A reminder that for many working Londoners in the early Victorian era, the parish workhouse was the final destination if you outlived your savings and your family couldn't take you in. Mary Ann had been widowed seven years earlier when Joseph died in 1835. The Castle Street workhouse stood almost exactly where the present-day National Portrait Gallery is — yards from where she had been born and lived.
The Murray Irish crossing
Born in 1797 — the year after the Bantry Bay landing of the French fleet — and made it across to London by his early 20s. The clinching evidence: he married Dinah Mayhew at Christ Church Greyfriars Newgate, London on 5 August 1821. Their first son, John William Murray Jr, was born just six months later on 12 February 1822 in Holborn — so Dinah was four months pregnant at the wedding. He died aged 44 in May 1841 at Middle Row Place, City of London. Dinah survived him by five years, dying in May 1846.
The tree also lists a possible earlier Irish partner, Honora Henessy (1794–1864, Cork), who may have been mother of the two oldest children, Bridget (1816) and Edward (1819).
The Bonsey brickmakers News
A list of partnerships and trades, including: "Bonsey, Charlotte Bonsey, A. Bonsey — Chertsey, Surrey, brickmakers"
Charlotte Eliza Bonsey (1814–1871, our 3xG-grandmother) died at 16 Vere Street in the Strand on 23 November 1871 — three weeks after the London papers carried this notice mentioning a Bonsey brickmaking firm at Chertsey, Surrey. The Bonseys were therefore Surrey brickmakers — the kind of family running a local clay-pit and tile works on the Thames flood plain — with at least one daughter (Charlotte) who married out and moved to the Strand. The notice appears to be a published list of dissolved partnerships or bankruptcies. The full text is behind a paywall; the snippet view is enough to confirm the family trade.
The "five Williams" of Drury Lane
Four straight generations of Drummond men called William something — all living within a half-mile of Drury Lane:
- William Frederick Drummond (1796 Holborn – 1846 Strand)
- William John Drummond (1826 Bloomsbury St George – 1893 London)
- William Turnour Drummond (1856 Southwark – 1935 Shoreditch)
- William Turnour D Drummond (1876 Strand – 1929 Islington)
- and another William John Drummond (1898 Drury Lane – 1986 Romsey, Hampshire) breaks out
The chain finally broke when Frederick Drummond (1910–1986), Shelley's grandfather, was named Frederick rather than William and moved out to Edmonton.
The big stories
Story 1: The Irish crossing of John William Murray (1819–1821)
The Murray line is the only Irish thread in the tree. John William Murray was born in 1797 in Cork (or Roscommon — the existing tree records both, possibly conflating place name and county). Some time between 1819 and 1821 he crossed the Irish Sea to London. The marriage register at Christ Church Greyfriars Newgate places him there in August 1821, marrying an English woman, Dinah Mayhew, who was four months pregnant. He died 20 years later, aged 44, at a now-vanished address called Middle Row Place in the City of London. The most likely explanation for his move: post-Napoleonic agricultural collapse in Ireland after 1815, and London's labour market boom.
Story 2: The Drury Lane Drummonds (1796–1929)
For 130 years, every generation of Drummonds in this tree was born within a half-mile of Drury Lane. The first to break the pattern was Frederick (1910–1986) who moved to Edmonton, then Ipswich. His daughter Janet then went further out again, ending up in Hampshire.
Story 3: The Coventry industrial family (1860–1973)
Five generations of Tedds, Cookes, Barkers and Nevills all lived and died within Coventry. They worked in the courts and yards of the inner city — Cox Street, Far Gosford Street, Grove Street are exactly the kinds of address that the post-WWII Coventry rebuild flattened. The Tedds were industrial: Tom Tedd's job description ("Capstan Lathe Hand Setter Up") is a job title that effectively disappeared with the British engineering industry by 1980. The Barkers were stonemasons. Brian Longden — Shelley's father — was the first of the Coventry-Tedd-Longden line to leave the West Midlands, moving south to Hampshire in adulthood.
Story 4: The dark corner
Every family tree has at least one. Here it is James Henry Barker (1860–1911), Coventry stonemason — who in the summer of 1900 was sent to prison for two weeks for assaulting his 17-year-old daughter Beatrice, then within 15 months was hauled before the magistrates again for being drunk in Payne's Lane and threatening a neighbour. He is Florence May Tedd's maternal grandfather, and Shelley's great-great-grandfather. His daughter — the assaulted Beatrice's sister Florence — would go on to marry Tom Tedd in the early 1910s and to bury her own three-week-old baby in March 1913.
Story 5: Names that carry forward
- James / Kenneth — James K Longden → Brian Kenneth Longden → Stuart John Longden (Kenneth skipped)
- Florence — Florence Sr Tedd (Barker) → Florence May Tedd
- Winifred — Winifred Fanny Harvey → Winifred S Barwick
- Tom — Tom Tedd Sr → baby Tom Tedd (died 3 weeks old, 1913)
- William John — used three times across the Drummond line
Index — everyone in Shelley's direct line
Generation 0
Shelley Annette Longden (b. 1990)
Generation 1 — parents (2)
Brian Kenneth Longden · Janet Susan Drummond
Generation 2 — grandparents (4)
James Kenneth Longden · Florence May Tedd · Frederick Drummond · Winifred S Barwick
Generation 3 — great-grandparents (6 known of 8)
Tom Tedd · Florence Tedd (Barker) · William Turnour D Drummond · Emily Eliza Murray · William Leonard Barwick · Winifred Fanny Harvey
Generation 4 — great-great-grandparents (8)
William Tedd · Hannah Selina Cooke · James Henry Barker (★ scandal) · Emma Burbridge Nevill · William Turnour Drummond · Isabella Ann East · George Murray · Sarah Cooper
Generation 5 — 3xG-grandparents (8 known)
William John Drummond · Elizabeth Mary Titchener · John East · Charlotte Eliza Bonsey · John William Murray Jr · Elizabeth Ann Cooper · James Cooper · Eleanor Poston
Generation 6 — 4xG-grandparents
William Frederick Drummond · Hephzibah Dalton · John William Murray Sr (Cork) · Dinah Mayhew · Honora Henessy (Cork — possible non-bloodline first partner) · Robert Samuel Bonsey · Lydia Hulse · William East · Ann · James Hensley · Elizabeth
Generation 7 — 5xG-grandparents
John Drummond · Cathe Drummond · Joseph Dalton (★ 1802 burglary at his house) · Mary Ann Haines (d. workhouse) · William Henessy · Julia Ann Ryan (both Cork)
Sources & methodology
All birth, marriage, death and census dates come from the Longden Family Tree on Ancestry.co.uk (tree #210484516, exported 8 May 2026 as a GEDCOM file with 70 individuals across 28 family units).
Newspapers
- Tom Tedd material — searched on FindMyPast's British Newspaper Archive (102 million pages). Primary sources: Coventry Evening Telegraph (1902, 1903, 1914, 1920); Kenilworth Advertiser (1913); Coleshill Chronicle (1913); Coventry Reporter (1903, 1904)
- James Henry Barker material — Coventry Evening Telegraph (1900, 1901); Coventry Reporter (1900); Coventry Herald (1901); Coventry Reporter (1911 death notice)
- Bonsey brickmakers — Newspapers.com search of The Morning Post, Daily News, The Daily Telegraph, all 1 November 1871. Snippet view (full text behind paywall)
- Dalton burglary — The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, free public archive (Digital Humanities Institute, University of Sheffield), trial reference t18021027-125, dated 27 October 1802
Other context
- "Hephzibah" name etymology: 2 Kings 21:1 and Isaiah 62:4 in the Hebrew Bible
- "Year Without a Summer" of 1816 — caused by the Mount Tambora eruption of 1815, contributing to Irish post-Napoleonic agricultural collapse
- Coventry "court" housing — Edwardian working-class courtyard housing, mostly demolished post-WWII
- "Children and Cots" inquests — period euphemism for infant overlaying / cot-death inquests, common in Edwardian working-class homes where babies slept in adult beds
No live links: Ancestry, FindMyPast, Newspapers.com and the Old Bailey archive all require their own subscriptions or specific URLs. Reproduction quotations are kept short to honour fair use.