Thomas Osborne 1809 - 1875

Thomas Osborne (1809 – 1875) & Elizabeth Groce (1810 – 1868)

Thomas Osborne is our great great grandfather born in Clerkenwell, London on 14th July 1809. 

By 1853 they had had ten children, six boys and four girls. Their third son James born 1839 was our great grandfather, and is the subject of another page. 

Seven Dials was one of the great slums of London. The living conditions were terrible, with overcrowding and children all over the place. The houses were packed and filthy, the shops sold only second-hand items and the area struggled to keep up with the basic needs of their tenants. Charles Dickens was quite taken with it, and the things he saw in the slums of Seven Dials are believed to inspire Night Walks, an essay he wrote to convey the sense of apprehension he felt walking London’s streets at night.

However, the Osborne family was probably better off than many others due to Thomas’s occupation in the gun trade. The baptism records of all of his children show him as a gun polisher, and he is always in the gun trade in the census records. In this period guns were made not by one person, but by specialist tradesmen each performing one particular part of the manufacturing process and handing the job on to the next tradesman, like a production line. Each tradesman would work in his own premises and would be paid according to finished items that he delivered. The gun polisher was one of these specialist tradesmen, who would take rough castings of parts and barrels, and shape and polish them ready to be worked on by the next person. Two of Thomas’s sons also worked as gun polishers so it seems likely that Thomas worked at home and taught his sons the skills. He almost certainly was able to maintain a steady income from this work. Of the ten children that they had, all except one survived to adulthood. This was exceptional for the areas they were living in, where more than half the children born died before they were two years old. (The child who died was Robert in 1841 aged 9 months).

Thomas’s wife Elizabeth died in 1868, aged about 60.

Thomas then moved in to live with his eldest son George who was now married with a family of his own, working as a Gun Maker at 32 Crown Street, St Giles. Every generation of our Osbornes has at least one person working in the gun industry.

In 1875 Thomas died aged about 65.

Ancestors of Thomas Osborne

Finding Thomas's origins was not straightforward and this section explains how it came about. The evidence builds up step by step finally leading to a conclusion. I hope you can follow it.

From his ages given in census records we know that Thomas must have been born about 1810 in London. The census records aren't more specific than that. There are only two baptism records that could be his, and one of those died as an infant, which leaves us with a baptism on 3rd January 1810 at St James, Clerkenwell. The baptism also gives his birth date 14th July 1809, and his parents Thomas and Hannah Osborne.

But we can't just assume that the Clerkenwell baptism must be our Thomas. We need to find more evidence to try to prove it. So we looked to see if the parents Thomas and Hannah had more children. To avoid confusion we'll refer to our Thomas as Thomas junior, and his possible father as Thomas senior.

We found several more children baptised in St James Clerkenwell between 1809 and 1826 with parents Thomas senior and Hannah Osborne, so it looks as if they married in about 1808. And here is the marriage  - 28th August 1808 to Hannah Baldwin in St Brides, Fleet Street:

So far so good. We have a Thomas senior and Hannah Osborne living in Clerkenwell with several children, one of whom is called Thomas, born in 1809, who could be our Thomas junior.

One of their other children was a boy called William Osborne born on 26 May 1811. And researching William eventually leads us to some further evidence.

When William married in 1848, his occupation was gun polisher, which is precisely the same occupation as our Thomas junior, who would be William's brother. It seems plausible that the brothers, Thomas and William Osborne, were employed locally in Clerkenwell learning their trade with a master gunsmith. And later of course we see that our Thomas is a gun polisher in census records and when his children are baptised. Still not proof but the gun polisher connection is strong circumstantial evidence, especially since it wasn't a very common occupation.

Three years later in the 1851 census William is with an Uncle, John Osborne, in Birmingham. John Osborne is therefore the brother of Thomas senior in Clerkenwell. John is from Hanbury, Worcestershire. In the Hanbury parish registers there are baptisms for both brothers Thomas and John, which provide us with their parents names, John and Ann. The date of Thomas's baptism gives an age which coincides exactly with the age of Thomas senior in Clerkenwell census records.

So now the evidence is getting stronger - Thomas junior's age and gun polisher occupation, and now Thomas senior's age.

And a final piece of evidence - The Osborne family from Hanbury were mattress makers by trade. Thomas senior in Clerkenwell is a mattress maker when another son George is baptised in 1814.

So whilst none of these facts on their own are conclusive, taken collectively they make a very strong case that our Osbornes originated in Hanbury, Worcestershire.

Ancestors of Elizabeth Groce

Elizabeth Groce was another person whose origins we had some difficulty with initially. But the availability of more London records showed that she was born in 1810 the daughter of Peter and Sarah Grose, living at the Mackworth Arms, Commercial Road. Elizabeth was actually one of twins, but her sister Lydia died soon after being born. The name Lydia occurs again  - one of Elizabeth's children was Lydia Osborne.

The Mackworth Arms is included in the page about pubs in our family.