William John Glanville Lanyon was born on 31 May 1881 in Saltash Cornwall, the illegitimate son of Mary Ann Lanyon. He was known as John Lanyon.
I’ve pieced the following story together from the records available.
According to the 1861 census Mary Ann Lanyon was born in 1858 in Hayle, Cornwall the daughter of John Lanyon & Emma Jane. John was a boiler maker steam engineer and died at the tragically young age of just 24. John was from Marazion and I can trace his family tree back to Barnard Lanyon 1638-1714.
I found a marriage of a John Langon & Emma Elmes in 1857 St Germans and a birth registration for Mary Ann in Penzance in 1857 with a mother’s maiden name of Elums. Various censuses have her born C1857/8 in either Hayle or Saltash.
In 1864 Emma Jane (26) married William Barrett, a fisherman, age 20. She is listed as a widow on the marriage certificate.
In 1873 at the age of 15 Mary had her first illegitimate child: Kate Lanyon, followed three years later by Edith Annie and then Alfred & Francis Lanyon, twins. Finally in 1881 she gave birth to William John Glanville Lanyon. According to the 1881 census she was an inmate at St Germans Union, Torpoint (the workhouse) with 2 year old twins Frank & Alfred Lanyon. She’s listed as a fisher saleswoman and pauper. Presumably she had been admitted to the workhouse due to the imminent arrival of another child and extreme poverty. What a desperately hard life it must have been.
In 1884 she gave birth to another illegitimate child, Hetty Roseanna Beer and the following year she married William Henry Beer in Saltash. William was a tailor journeyman.
In 1886 Mary gave birth to William George Henry Beer (her second child called William). This is presumably why William John Glanville Lanyon used the name John rather than William.
Mary Ann had two more children: James & Beatrice Beer. Then William Beer her husband died aged just 36. Two years later she had another illegitimate child, Frederick Charles Beer.
Mary Ann died 17 Mar 1925 in Saltash.
On the 1911 census William John Glanville Lanyon aka John Lanyon is described as a fisherman and is still living at home with his mother and three of his brothers.
Military records show that he was a private in the army, the Duke of Cornwall’s light infantry, during the first world war and that he was discharged on 14 April 1917 as he had a gun shot wound to his arm which was amputated.
The 1921 census shows him still living at home with two of his brothers, working as a fisherman and is still listed as single.
In 1923 his army pension records showed him moving from Saltash to 141 Hertford Road Enfield. The electoral register for Enfield in 1924 showed him living at 141 Hertford Road with Rosina ‘Lanyon’. I was unable to trace a death or burial for Rosina’s first husband Alfred William Clarke.
On 29 May 1939 John Lanyon married Rosina Maud Clarke (nee Williams). John was almost 60! Rosina was the ‘widow’ of Alfred William Clarke. There were two children of this first marriage.
- Alfred Felix 1900-
- Rosalind Jannette 1900-2006
The 1939 register described John Lanyon as incapacitated. The couple were living on a houseboat called ‘Beatrice’ in Saltash.
So far so good…..but this is where it gets complicated and it’s fair to say it took me many months to untangle this little branch of the family.
In 1921 Rosalind Jannette Clarke was working as a shorthand typist and living in Devonport with her parents, Alfred and Rosina. Alfred was a boatman for the RN coastguard service and they lived at Fawley coastguard station. Perhaps Alfred knew a one armed fisherman called John Lanyon!
By Aug 1922 Rosalind had given birth to her first child. She wasn’t married but the father of the child was Sidney Alfred Thomas.
Sidney Alfred Thomas
Sidney was born in Sheerness Kent on 15 Mar 1889, the son of John Battersby Thomas and Mary Louisa Hurrell. On the 1901 census he is listed as attending the Royal Hospital School at Greenwich. In 1904 he joined the navy (service no: 347079). In 1911 he joined the freemasons, Hong Kong United Service lodge of HMS Robin. HMS Robin was a river gunboat in Canton, China.
In January 1915 Sidney married Ida May Boulton at Devonport.
On 8 Jul 1919 Sidney left the Royal Navy and by 1921 he and Ida were no longer living together. He was working as a dairyman and pork butcher. There were no children from this marriage.
By Aug 1922 he was the father of Rosalind’s first son. He had also changed his name to John Lanyon! I assume he chose this name as he knew William John Glanville Lanyon.
By 1928 he, Rosalind and their son were living in Surrey. I found them on the electoral register in Esher, working at the Claremont Restaurant and living with a William Lanyon. Presumably William John Glanville Lanyon.
By 1943 they had two more children and Rosalind was using the surname Lanyon and also using the first name Rosalina. To confuse matters even more by this time her mother Rosina had married William John Lanyon so mother and daughter, Rosalind/Rosalina and Rosina, were both using the surname Lanyon and living with men known as John Lanyon!
Rosina’s wedding certificate was signed by Rosalind J Thomas and Sidney A Thomas even though he had been using the name John Lanyon since 1922.
Sidney/John and Rosalind must have separated sometime after 1943 when their third child was born. Then on 25 Sep 1950 Sidney Alfred Thomas aka John Lanyon married Agnes Taylor at Finsbury London. John described himself as a widower. John had never been married to Rosalind but his first wife Ida was still very much alive and they weren’t divorced!
To complicate things even further Agnes Taylor’s first husband was called Sydney Alfred Hurry. It seems incredible that Agnes married two men both called Sidney Alfred! They had married on 25 Sep 1926. The 1939 register records that she was divorced.
Poor Ida Lanyon had been abandoned and had gone back to live with her mother and sisters. She worked as a school teacher. She died on 14 Sep 1961 at Plymouth and her probate described her as ‘wife of Sidney Alfred Thomas’.
I was unable to trace a death for William John Glanville Lanyon/John Lanyon. He was alive in 1939 and that’s as far as I was able to follow him.
Rosina Maud Lanyon died Q2 1963 at Portsmouth.
Sidney Alfred Thomas/John Lanyon died 13 June 1964 in Chelmsford.
Rosalind Jannette Clarke aka Lanyon died in 2006 at the age of 106!
The Lanyons 