Your monument shall be my gentle verse
That eyes not yet created shall o'er read
And tongues to be, your being, shall rehearse
When all the breathers of your world are dead
You still shall live, such virtue hath my pen
Where breath most breathes - in mouths of men

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Sunday 25 September 2016

Joshua Ginn of Weston d. 1883

Joshua Ginn here (son of William in my post of 1st April 2013 ) was also the Weston village blacksmith.  There are various papers concerning him at the Hertfordshire Record Office.

In 1826 he married Ann Watson, presumably his cousin and he and Ann had various children before Ann sadly died in 1851.  She is buried near the church at Weston - I have seen the grave.


Joshua married Sarah Ann Bateman at Walkern in 1854, the marriage was announced in the "County Press"  Sarah was a widow and her father was a William Hunt.

From the 1850s Joshua began describing himself as an "engineer" , I am not entirely sure what he did - but he seems to have acquired/ inherited a few properties and became quite prosperous by the 1860s.  Unfortunately he seems to have overextended himself, borrowing against them and then borrowing again, and in 1868 all were sold by his creditors at auction and he went bust.  That same year Sarah added insult to injury and divorced him and Joshua moved to  lodgings in Hertford.  He was there in 1871and 1881. He sadly died in Hertford Workhouse in 1883 aged 78.

Joshua and Ann had seven children

George and Sarah - died infancy

Joshua - see next post

John - in 1855 he married Charlotte Newling who originated in the Isle of Man. They never had any children.  John ran his own Agricultural Implement Repair business in Maiden Street, Weston.  Charlotte died in 1875 aged 39 and in 1878 at Chelsea, John remarried an Eliza Parker from Wingfield in Buckinghamshire.  They had a daughter, Mary at Weston in 1880.  John Ginn died at Weston in 1891 aged 61.  What happened to Eliza and Mary is unknown.

Mary - married William Gundwill at Weston in 1844

Francis - he never married and died in Kent in 1873 aged 39.

William - became  a Blacksmith, never married and died in 1880 aged 52.  He is buried with his mother at Weston.

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