Whilst searching for a marriage between Temple Wilmot and Catherine Somerville I came across another possible wife!
On 8 Mar, 9 Mar 1857 and again on 5 June 1857 there are banns called for a marriage between Temple Bouverie Cleaveland Wilmot and Louisa Heminger née Hooper. It’s not clear if any marriage actually took place as they are crossed through and unsigned however the GRO does have the marriages listed as taking place!
I attempted to obtain the marriage certificates from the General Register Office and received this message back:
‘Thank you for your enquiry. We are sorry that you did not receive notification of the outcome of your order. We should have advised you that we were unable to produce a certificate because we have checked the entries at the references quoted and both entries have been cancelled. As a result it appears there is an error in the indexes.‘
So who was Temple pretending to be now and who was Louisa Heminger?
The crossed out marriage entries are for Temple Bouverie Cleaveland Wilmot Esq the son of Thomas Wilmot, gentleman, deceased.
Louisa Heminger was a widow living in St Giles, Camberwell, Surrey and the daughter of John Hooper, a minister of the Lutheran Church, also deceased.
I set out to find her first marriage without much success, I couldn’t find a marriage for Hooper/Heminger. I changed the parameters slightly and found a marriage on 23 Jun 1852 at St Pancras between a Henry Heming and a Louisa Hooper. Louisa was six months pregnant.
Louisa was aged 22 and the daughter of Stephen Hooper a stationer. Henry was a commercial traveller and the son of John Heming a silversmith.
Louisa’s family lived at 45 Fleet St, London and her father was a legal stationer, a specialised and lucrative trade producing parchment for lawyers. Stephen married Louisa Kingsford in 1827. (Hooper may have been an anglicised form of Huber.)
Louisa and Henry had a son Henry Hooper Heming born 23 Sep 1852.
I can’t find a death for Henry Heming but it must have been before 1857 when Louisa ‘almost’ married Temple. On the 1861 census for Tunbridge Wells Louisa was living with her mother and son and both women were listed as widows. They also have a Cecil Mortimer Esq age 48 living with them as well. I did wonder if this was another of Temple’s aliases but a little research revealed that he was legitimate.
Louisa Heming died on 1 Oct 1861 from Phthisis Pulmonalis (TB), she was just 33 years old.
Louisa’s mother raised her grandson. They are both listed together on the 1871 census. In 1872 Henry emigrated to America where he worked as a journalist.
So why did Temple try and fail three times to marry Louisa? Perhaps her family spotted exactly what kind of man he was and each time put a stop to it. Perhaps their connections with the legal trade enabled them to investigate and find out he wasn’t who he claimed to be.
Temple didn’t stay ‘single’ for long after his failed attempt at marriage with Louisa. By September 1862 he had fathered another child!
To be continued…..
The Lanyons 