FRANCIS HORNETT : 1836 - 1894
Francis was the fourth child of Charles and Elizabeth, born on 17th May 1836 and baptised on 5th June at Christ Church, Marylebone. He was also my gg grandfather. It seems likely that Francis was born at the family's home of 6 Duke Street, Marylebone, as this was the address recorded at the time of his baptism, though there is no direct evidence. In 1841, he was living with his family in Houghton Street, Strand, but by 1851 he had moved to be with a butcher, Daniel Dossetor, in Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury; Francis was then aged 14 and was described as being a journeyman butcher though this was not an occupation that he continued with. By 1861, he had returned to be living with his parents in Drury Lane and was working as a painter, meaning a house painter rather than an artist, and this is the occupation he retained for the rest of his life.
The 1861 census was conducted on the night of 7th April and Francis married exactly one week later, his bride being Charlotte Winterborne. She had been born in Iver, Buckinghamshire, in July 1838 and how she came to meet Francis is unknown; at the 1861 census, Charlotte was living with her parents in Mortlake, Surrey, but the marriage took place at St Martin in the Fields. However, it appears that Francis and Charlotte set up home in Mortlake, where their first child, Thomas Francis Hornett, was born in January 1862. They soon moved to Providence Row, Finsbury, where twins, Francis and Alice Elizabeth, were born in July 1863; sadly, Francis lived for only 2 days and Alice for 6 months, both children dying from what was described as 'debility'. A fourth child, Henry, arrived on 18th August 1864 by when the family was living at Upper Clifton Street, Shoreditch, but he died, aged 1, in early 1866. Charlotte had another set of twins, William and Albert, born on 18th August 1865 when the family had moved again, this time to Drury lane; tragically, both children died within a few weeks.
At some point in late 1865 or early 1866, Francis and Charlotte moved across the Thames to Wandsworth, where Henry died; they had now lost 5 of the 6 children born to them in the space of 4 years. In October 1866, a seventh child, George Richard, was born in Culvert Road, Battersea, and he was joined by an eighth, Charles John, who was born in Lavender Road in July 1868; Charles John was my great grandfather. Yet another move sawFrancis and Charlotte living at Cook's Road, Newington, in 1871, when they had their 3 surviving sons with them; (Thomas) Francis aged 9, George Richard aged 4 and Charles John aged 2.
In November 1872, a final child, Edward James, was born in Newcastle Street, St Clement Danes, but he also failed to survive, dying early in 1873. For Francis, this must have been a very difficult time as his wife, Charlotte, also died, in February 1873; the cause of her death was recorded as being a 'psoas abscess', which could have been a consequence of tuberculosis of the spine. There are no further records of Francis until the 1881 census when he was living at Houghton Street, Strand; he was then aged 45 and still working as a decorator. Two of his surviving sons, George and Charles were living with him and other family members were also at the same address; his widowed mother, youngest sister Mary and the family of his brother, William, were all there.
Two weeks after the 1881 census, on 17th April, Francis married Eliza Taylor at St Clement Dane's Church; Eliza was a spinster who had been working as a domestic nurse though it seems she may have been unemployed immediately prior to the marriage. In September of the same year, Francis' son, Charles John, was baptised in Southwark; the church register recorded his mother's name as Eliza, presumably because she was present, and their home address was then in Holmby Street, Albany Road, Walworth. After this, the next appearance of Francis and Eliza was in the 1891 census when they had moved again, this time to 14 Tavistock Place, St Pancras; it was here that Francis died suddenly on 20th February 1894, aged 57. His death certificate records that he had heart and kidney disease but gives the main cause of death as 'Syncope', meaning a sudden collapse. Eliza lived on until December 1911, when she died of breast cancer at the Central London Sick Asylum in Hendon. Neither Francis nor Eliza left any significant assets and there are no estate records for them.