Work in Progress
This page is regularly added to or corrected as I discover or am given more information. Any information you can provide about your family members, past or present, would be very welcome. Please forward to henry@mordaunt.me.uk.
This page was last amended June, 2024.
In the 19th Century, ignoring the extended family of the Baronets of Massingham who were spread between Warwickshire and Somerset with homes in London's West End, there were three main concentrations of Mordaunts, London, Ireland (Co. Wexford, with some in Dublin) and Lancashire.
This page attempts to trace the non-aristocratic Mordaunts in London. The main concentration were in the areas of the City and to the east and north: Whitechapel; Shadwell; Bethnal Green; Hackney; Shoreditch; Islington and St Pancras, all in the old county of Middlesex. Some others were found in the leafy western and southern suburbs of Kingston Upon Thames and Croydon across the Thames in Surrey.
Before 1837, the records of parish churches were the most helpful, although the records of the Old Bailey were illuminating. Birth, Marriage and Death records were kept after 1837 and the first national census was held in 1841. It is clear none of these records were efficiently compiled in the early years with many slipping through the net.
Identifiable family groups
- Patrick Mordaunt (? - 1815) of Spring Street, Shadwell, East London. The name Patrick suggests Irish origin. He and his wife Margaret were the proprietors of "a house of ill fame and bawdy houses", according to the accused at an Old Bailey trial in 1794 (Page 1 and page 2). They certainly ran a public house, the Ship, Spring Street, Shadwell, at an earlier Old Bailey trial in 1782, when Margaret Mordaunt is also described as a pawnbroker. Spring Street, (scroll down this link), possibly named from one of two mineral springs in the district at the time, no longer exists; it was in the area dug up to create Shadwell Basin (built 1828 - 1832). Perhaps after Patrick's death, it was the home of his son, George, which burnt down in 1817, see below. A description of Shadwell at this time is given on this British History On-Line webpage. Patrick and Margaret were frequently in court at the Old Bailey either as a victim or as a witness, attending also in 1776, 1781, 1793, and again in 1793.
Curiously, he became a member of the Worshipful Company of Needlermakers in 1776, which apparently he could do by payment of a "larger fee or fine", which then gave him the status of Freeman of the City of London. Perhaps before he became an innkeeper, he had completed an apprenticeship in needle making, perhaps he just wanted the status.
His (surviving) children were named in his 1798 Will, and I have listed them in the order given. Although he "made his mark" on his Will, perhaps that was due to infirmity. His signature appears on marriage records. The Will was signed on 21st October 1798. A Patrick Mordaunt of Spring Street was buried at St. Paul's, Shadwell, on 27th October 1798. Was that a son who had died and prompted a new Will? Being named Patrick, would he have been the eldest son? Or was it, perhaps, his father, who was perhaps living with him and coincidently died around the same time?
- Theresa Mordaunt (b. after 1776 - ?), who married Joseph Bourne from Northumberland at St Paul's, Shadwell, in 17th September 1797. She was under 21 years old at the time.
- Charlotte Mordaunt
- Maria Mordaunt. I am very grateful to Sophie Schönfeld in Germany who kindly wrote to me in March 2017 with details of Maria Mordaunt's sad life. On 25th July 1816 she was taken to the newly resited and rebuilt Bethlem (mental) Hospital by her brother George Edward and admitted. The medical notes transcribed by Sophie read:
She is sent hither by her friends and is reported to have been disordered for two months. This is stated to be the second attack. She is single and the disease is attributed to disappointed love. The first attack took place about ten months ago and continued for six weeks. She was then at the White House Bethnel Green. The first attack began by a melancholy depression of spirits with slothfulness and much inattention to her person and this state was succeeded by one of considerable violence from which she gradually recovered. This 2nd attack began with much more violence than the first and she has now a very unfavorable appearance: her eyebrows are drawn up, the eyes excessively vacant, there is constant spitting(?). I suspect there is some pressure(?) on the brain which may be permanent.
(this is followed by a number of abbreviated notes)
Aug. 29.: On the 22nd of this month I represented to the subcommittee that there was reason to believe that Maria Mordaunt had been discharged (...) from St. Luke´s Hospital and the apothecary was directed to make such inquiry as would ascertain the fact, and report thereon at the next meeting. That report was made this day and it appearing evident that she had been discharged from St Lukes after being there 12 months. The subcommittee ordered that she be immediately discharged from this hospital.
Another Bethlem Hospital record shows she was discharged on 5th September 1816 but did not actually depart until 11th September, 1816
There seems little doubt that she was the 65 year-old "idiot" in Wapping workhouse in the 1841 census. The birth date would be about right but the census states she was not born in Middlesex. And this Maria Mordaunt must surely be whose burial was recorded at St. John of Wapping on 13th July, 1849, from Wapping Workhouse, although the age was given as only given as 64 years. Shunted between three mental hospitals in twelve months, 1815 - 1816, one wonders what sort of life she lived between 1816 and her death thirty three years later.
- George Edward Mordaunt (? - before 1867 when he is described as "deceased" on his son George's marriage record). Unless there was another George in the family, he is presumably the George Mordaunt listed in a 1811 trade directory described as a "dealer in fresh & salt provisions, Great Spring Street, Shadwell." In January 1812, by patrimony, he became a member of the Worshipful Company of Needlemakers and, hence, a Freeman of the City, although, like his father, there is no evidence of his ever manufacturing needles. On 18th July, 1812, he married Ann Bartlett at St John at Hackney. At his daughter, Mary Ann's christening he was described as a victualler (innkeeper). He was so described in the records of Bethlem Hospital when he took his sister, Maria, there in July 1816. His address was given as Ratcliff Highway (scroll down the page), now simply marked on maps as The Highway. He may well have been the unfortunate officer, George Edward Mordaunt, whose house burnt down destroying the vital evidence for the trial of Joseph Bell at the Old Bailey in 1817 but it seems he went back to being a victualler and then a hairdresser, although in the record of his daughter, Charlottes's, wedding he was described as a "city officer.".
- Mary Ann Mordaunt (14th May 1813 - ?) was christened on 15th July 1813 at St Saviour, Southwark. Her date fits in with a 28 year old Mary Mordaunt, a dressmaker(?), lodging at 33 Devonshire Street, St Marylebone, in the 1841 census. Might she even be the Mary A. Mordaunt, unmarried, a needlewoman, listed in the 1871 census, although her age was given as 63 years, born abt. 1808?
- Georgina Amelia Mordaunt (14th October 1814 - 1818) was baptised at St Saviours, Southwark on 17th March 1815. Her father is described as a victualler, resident in Union Street. She died aged three and was buried at St. Paul's, Shadwell, on 6th August, 1818. Her address was given as Upper Turning(?)
The next three children were baptised together at St Mary, Lambeth, on 2nd February, 1821. They are entered below in the order they appear in the Parish Register. By this date, their father's profession is given as hairdresser.
(before 1818 - ?). She married a mariner, Thomas Waters, St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, on