- Baptism: 10th August 1823 in Pinner
- Marriage: 25th October 1845 to Jane Priest in Penn, Bucks
- Death: 22nd June 1905 in Greenford
John was an agricultural labourer. He is still living with his parents in Pinner Place in 1841.
John married Jane on 25th October 1845 to Jane Priest in Penn, Bucks – the village she was born and raised in.
When they married in 1845 Jane was listed as a lacemaker (a common job in the area at the time, but uncommon in Pinner). One of the witnesses to the marriage was John James Hoskings, who had married John’s sister Charlotte in 1838.
Their son John was born in 1847, George in 1849 and Matilda in 1851.
In 1851 Census shows John living at ‘West End, vicinity of West House and Rose Cottage’. He possibly lived in one of the set of 7 cottages on the site of today Dickson Fold, comprising 6 back-to-backs behind a cottage which faced West End Lane called Box Cottage, all seven demolished soon after WW2, roughly on the site of 11-15 Dickson Fold. So he had already left the farm cottages in Rayners Lane.
William is born in 1854.
The family are shown as receiving blankets and parish charity in 1854, so perhaps this was the reason that by 1855 John moved to Sudbury with his family. Sarah (1856), Jane (1858), and James (1860) were all born in Sudbury. In the 1861 census John was still an agricultural labourer living in Sudbury.
Robert is born in Sudbury in 1862. Sometime between 1862 and 1869 the family move to Greenford. Arthur is born in Greenford in 1869. Alice is born in 1870 in Kent.
Alice is listed as the daughter of John and Jane in the 1871 census, however it is believed that she is actually the daughter of Matilda, as in the 1881 census she is listed as their granddaughter. Matilda would have been 19 at the time of Alice’s birth. Whilst it appears that Jane was having children well into her 40s and had only just had a child herself the year before, Arthur was registered as being born at Greenford in 1869, and his parent’s residence in the 1871 census says Greenford, yet Alice was born in Kent in 1870. Possibly Matilda was sent away to have the baby.
Matilda marries George Gripton a blacksmith.
In 1881 James (working as a groom), Arthur and Alice are all still in home but on 28th July 1898 Alice marries Arthur John Bownes a coachman from Fulham.
By 1891 it is only James who is still at home with Jane.
At some point Sarah has moved to Australia.
In 1901 John is retired and again receiving relief from the Poor Law Guardians.
In 1904 death records also show a boy aged 7 days old of the same address as John, called John Thomas Rayner. Was this a grandson or more likely great-grandson?
John died in 1905 aged 81. His cause of death was senile decay (gradual). The informant was Alice Bownes, his granddaughter. He outlived all his siblings by many years, and predeceased all his children.
There is a family story that Jane was disowned by her family after her marriage. After her husband died in 1905 (when she was 79) her sisters Rachel and Matilda paid the rent of her cottage and for coal every year. When they visited they came in a carriage and Jane’s daughter Jane (also known as Jenny) had to leave the cottage for the time the sisters were there. In the census her sister’s occupation says ‘independent means’ – does this mean that Jane turned her back on family money to marry John?
In 1911 the census records that it was still Jane and her daughter Jane, single and 53 years old, in the household.
Jane died on 14th November 1915 at the age of 89. The cause of death was arterio sclerosis, heart failure. As with her husband John, the informant was Alice Bownes.
In 1917 both George and William died, followed by John in 1918.
1937 sees James’ death, then Matilda a year later in 1938.
Arthur died in 1947 in France.
By 1939 Alice is living in Kent and dies in 1958.
John and Jane had 9 children:
John George: 1847-1918
George: 1849-1917
Matilda: 1851-1938
William George: 1854 – 1917
Sarah: 1856-1912
Jane: 1858 – 1915
James: 1860 – 1937
Robert George: 1862–1913
Arthur E: 1869-1947
Alice – 1870-1958
Rayners Lane 