The Woman in the White Apron

Mary Ann Lanyon was born abt. 1858 at Hayle in Cornwall but I can’t find a record of her birth or her parents’ marriage. Her father was John Lanyon the son of Thomas Lanyon and Ann Uren and her mother was Emma Jane and perhaps her surname was Elems, Elums or Bassett!

John was a boilermaker, steam engineer and in 1861 the family were living in Tavistock, Devon. It’s not clear if John died or just abandoned his family but by 1864 his ‘wife’ had remarried to William Barrett, a fisherman, almost ten years younger than she was.

Children from her ‘marriage’ to John Lanyon:

• Mary Ann Lanyon 1858-1925
• William Thomas Lanyon 1859-1859
• Emma Jane Lanyon 1862-

Children from her marriage to William Barrett:

• Elizabeth Barrett 1869-
• Beatrice Barrett 1874-
• Bessie Barrett 1876-
• Florence barrett 1870-
• William Barrett 1878-

At the age of sixteen Mary Ann had her first illegitimate child, Kate and two years later she had Edith Annie. In 1879 she had twin boys, Francis and Alfred. By 1881 she was in the St Germans Union workhouse with her twins and expecting her fifth illegitimate child. She was just 24 years old. The census described her as a fish saleswoman and a pauper. Whilst she was in the workhouse her daughters Kate and Edith were living with her mother.

Her fifth child was William John Glanville Lanyon. Her sixth child was Hetty Roseanna Beer born in 1884. Mary Ann married Hetty’s father, William Henry Beer in 1885. William was a journeyman tailor born in Saltash in 1860. They had three more children before William died in 1896: William George Henry 1886 (her second son called William, the first was known as John), James Robert Beer 1888, Beatrice Florence (Betty) Beer 1890.

Two years after her husband’s death Frederick Charles Beer was born in 1898. According to the 1911 census she had twelve children altogether and three died. There are two still to trace.

In 1901 she was working as a charwoman and in 1911 she was living with her four single sons: Alfred (an invalid), Francis, John and George.

She died in Saltash in 1925 aged just 68.

We’ll follow her son William John Glanville in another post.