It should be fairly common knowledge by now that Mrs Jane Dyson, before she was Mrs Edwards, was Miss Jane Develing, or Develin, Devlin or Devling… a sixteen year old orphan girl sent to the Colony of Western Australia on the first of the bride ships in 1849.

Before that, she was an inmate of the Poorhouse of St Pancras parish in London’s north. She was sent there when she was six or seven years old. Naturally, she was the ringleader of a schoolroom revolt in the poorhouse by the age of eleven. Age thirteen or fourteen, she was giving evidence at a judicial inquest into the severe discipline at St Pancras. It was called for after the suicide of a fellow inmate — who decided that being dead was preferable to another stay in the workhouse. If Charles Dickens had not already written and published “Oliver Twist” by this date, Oliver Twist would have been a girl.

After newspaper-pages of bad publicity, and questions put to management even by the Home Secretary in the mother of all parliaments — if this feisty young lady had been disliked by the guardians of the parish before — she would have been utterly loathed by them now. It was not that Jane liked them much better, but she had nowhere else to go.

The depths of their hatred might be measured by the fact that they were prepared to spend cold hard coin to make the problem go away. Not by improving conditions or governance in the Poorhouse — don’t be silly! They paid for Jane and five other girls from St Pancras to leave the country forever.

The thing about workhouses, or poorhouses (the terms are used interchangeably), was that even at their most exploitative they cost money to run. Various districts got together to form poor law unions to split the costs by sharing a house between them. As they were paying the bills, the various parishes got a bit particular about who they provided shelter to. They would not willingly home paupers from outside their union districts.

St Pancras Poorhouse was something of an exception to the rule. It was not part of a Union, and as the second largest poorhouse in London, it’s destitute were supposed to come solely from the parish of St Pancras itself.

If Jane was an orphan, there should have been a trace of the death and burial of a relative in this parish, around about the time Jane was admitted. (There are no workhouse records surviving for the time she was admitted, they only exist after she blew the whistle on conditions inside, post 1848.)

There’s not a trace of any Develins or Develings to be found in death or burial records for the district during this time— the closest match, indeed the only match is for a burial record for a Mary Thivelin, buried in the parish burial grounds of St Pancras, by coincidence, right next to the poorhouse compound.

She was buried there on 8 February 1841. Her age at death was recorded as 35.

By this date, statutory records of births, deaths and marriages were supposed to have been kept in England. It should come as a suprise to no-one that the name Thivelin does not appear in the records for this district at this time. There is a death record for someone named Shovelin, but she was aged 25 or 26. That had to be another transcription error, didn’t it?

Yes and no. Mary Shovelin, (if she is aged 35), is still the most likely candidate to be Jane’s mother. She died in childbirth, as likely did the child as well. We know this because her husband was present at her death. This would make Thomas Shovelin Jane’s father.

Years ago, I asked a not-that-elderly relative what his father’s name was. He was puzzled by that question, but after a few moments of thought, replied “Pop?” (Well done Dad.) When you were six, would you necessarily have known your mother or father’s given names? Jane was 29 when she was asked that question, and the best answer she could come up with was “James Develing” as the name of her father. “James” was the name of the man she was about to marry that day. However, knowing what your daddy did when you were six is another matter entirely — when required to list his trade or profession on her marriage certificate, she put down “carpenter”. Thomas Shovelin also happens to describe himself as a carpenter on the death certificate of Jane’s potential mother.

Here is a brief sketch of the family Jane seems to have come from.

Thomas Shovelin was born in Dublin, Ireland, about the year 1798. He was a carpenter, and there is good probability he came to England to work in the theatre district of London. Nothing is known about his wife Mary, not where she was born or where they were married, other than that she was ten years his junior, and neither of them were Roman Catholic.

A son, George Shovelin, was born in London before 12 February 1826. He was baptised at St Clement Danes, London, on that date. His parents were living at 140 Dury Lane in the city at the time. — The first clue as to possible theatrical connections for the family.

Another child, William Fawcett Shovelin, born about 1829, was born at sea. Which sea, under what circumstances, nothing yet is known. (Let’s for the sake of an argument, say it was on a boat.) There is still no record of birth for a Jane Shovelin on 1 September 1833.

George joined the British Army as soon as he turned sixteen. He enlisted in the 39th Regiment of Foot as a Private. Six year old Jane would never see him again and his mother was dead the following year. George may have served overseas, but more research is needed to determine that. What is certain, he was no longer with the regiment when it was stationed in Australia.

George was invalided out of the army by January 1853. He is on the books of the Royal Chelsea Hospital for a time. Then — and here is the second clue the family may have had something to do with the stage — he was working as a Theatrical Property Man at the time of his death, which occured at 21 Bolsover Street, Marylebone on 17 July 1858. He died of an epileptic fit. He was 31 years old. He never married.

After his wife Mary died in childbirth and he’d abandoned his daughter Jane to the St Pancras poorhouse, Thomas Shovelin disappears from the English records for most of the following next decade.

When he reappears he has married a woman thirty years his junior named Mary Ann Whitbread Green. She comes from rural Essex. There is no trace of a marriage. Their son, Thomas Charles Shovelin, was born in Notting Hill late in 1851. Then, a Daniel Shovelin was born at St Luke’s, Westminster during 1854. These boys grew up to be Hackney cab drivers, or grooms for Hackney cab drivers (The auto-mechanics of their day).

A daughter, Mary Ann Shovelin, was born in 1860 but died in 1862.

Jane’s only surviving full brother William Fawcett Shovelin married a woman named Mary Ann (because of course he did.) It is his name that is recorded in the England censuses as Shoveling. He abandoned his Mary Ann to the Workhouse in Westminster, and took up with a Julia, however he was dead before his first wife expired in the workhouse by 1872.

On 7 January 1868, seventy year old Thomas Shovelin was so reduced in circumstances that he too had to be admitted to the St Pancras Poorhouse. And that was the end of him the following year.

Tracing the Shovelin family though the genealogical records has been challenging and is far from complete. Either records are missing, or the family name has been written down in hard to search for variations including Shovelin, Shoveling, Shovling, Shevlin, Shivelin, Thivelin, etc. It no longer seems to me such a jump to get from Shovelin to Develing.

Selected Sources

Westminster, London, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1919
Name George Shovelin
Age 0
Birth Date Abt 1826
Baptism Date 12 Feb. 1826
Baptism Place St Clement Danes, London, Westminster, England
Parish as it Appears St Clement Danes
Father Thomas Shovelin, Carpenter, Drury Lane.
Mother Ann Shovelin
City of Westminster Archives Centre; London, England; Westminster Church of England Parish Registers; Reference: STC/PR/1/17

UK, Royal Hospital Chelsea Admission Books, Registers and Papers, 1702-1980
Name Geo Shovelin
Military Regiment 39th Regiment of Foot
Military Pension Date 11 Jan. 1853
Residence Place 2 North London
3 yrs to 21/1/56
The National Archives; Kew, Surrey, England; WO 23: Royal Hospital Chelsea: Admission Books, Registers and Papers; Reference: WO 23/39

England Census 1861: 4 London Street, St Pancras
Thomas Shovelin 58 Head, Journeyman Carpenter, b. Dublin, Ireland
Mary A Shovelin 39 Wife, b. Essex, Farnham
Thomas Shovelin 9 Son, b. Middlesex, London
Daniel Shovelin 7 Son, b. Middlesex, London
Mary A Shovelin 11mo Daughter, b. Middlesex, London
Class: Rg 9; Piece: 102; Folio: 2; Page: 3; GSU roll: 542574

England Census 1861: 31 North Street, Lambeth, Surey, England
William Fawcet Shovling 34 Head, House painter, b. at Sea.
Mary Ann Shovling 31 Wife, b. St George Grosvenor Street
George Oscar Shovling 8 Son, b. St Pancras
Maryann Shovling 4 Daughter, b. St George Grosvenor Street
Class: Rg 9; Piece: 351; Folio: 34; Page: 28; GSU roll: 542620

England Census 1871: 33 Maiden Lane, The Strand, London, England
William Shoveling 40 Head, House Decorator, b. at Sea
Julia Shoveling 28 Wife, b. Dorset.
Mary Anne Shoveling 14 Daughter, b. London.
The National Archives; Kew, London, England; 1871 England Census; Class: RG10; Piece: 362; Folio: 22; Page: 38; GSU roll: 824611

London, England, Workhouse Admission and Discharge Records, 1764-1921
Name Thos Shovelin
Admission Age 70
Record Type Admission
Birth Date abt 1798
Admission Date 7 May 1868
Admission Place St Pancras, Camden, City of London, England
London Metropolitan Archives; London, England, UK; London, England, Workhouse Admission and Discharge Records, 1764-1921; Reference Number: STPBG/166