Finding Lady Anne Pearl

Many women of the past, especially those who are not famous, are often forgotten in time. Their stories and details of their lives are lost, wiped away by their husband’s accomplishments and status. Finding this information adds to the history of their spouse and family while allowing us to see the dynamic person behind her title. 

Museum interpreter Kelsey here! A few weeks ago our museum manager, Sarah, gave me the task of gathering as much information on Lady Anne Pearl as possible. She was the wife of Sir James Pearl, founder of Mount Pearl, and is mentioned very little in our available literature. I was given her maiden name, Hawkins, and got to work. 

Being a biology student, I didn't have much academic experience with genealogy apart from pedigree charts, so I was both excited and nervous about the task. I started by conducting a search on Ancestry.ca. I was looking for records of Lady Anne before she married James such as birth records, christenings, census records, and any other trace I could find of her. I came across 3 different christening records of women named Anne Hawkins in London, England, all with different birth dates. So, I saved those and continued looking. 

I found that a lot of the records were not relevant as they were from places where we knew she didn’t live, or they were of a completely different time period. So, I looked to my coworkers to see if they had any advice. Sarah provided me with a book called “Pearl The Man and the Place: The Origin of Mount Pearl” which was a valuable resource. This book had extensive references which I could use to narrow down my various Anne Hawkins’. I sifted through the book, pulling every mention of Lady Anne’s name and writing them into a document with the appropriate page numbers for reference. From this, I found out that Lady Anne was 30 years old when she was widowed in 1840, and this gave me a birth year of 1810. This piece of information landed me on the correct christening record which listed her birthday (July 6, 1810), the day of her christening (July 24, 1810), and the names of her parents (James and Sarah Hawkins). This clue provided me with the beginnings of Lady Anne’s backstory.

 

Anne Hawkins christening record
Courtesy of Ancestry.ca

  

I searched every resource at my disposal to find any information about her life before James, but none of the information was for the proper Anne Hawkins. I searched for census records of her parents, variations of Lady Anne’s name, and different locations, but none of them brought me to her. I did, however, find the marriage record of her parents which allowed me to have some family history behind Lady Anne’s personal history. 

James and Sarah Hawkins marriage record
Courtesy of Ancestry.ca

Another piece of information I found about Anne Hawkins' family was that her father was a wealthy merchant and supplier to the Kensington Palace. 

I then plugged James Pearl’s name into the Ancestry database. Here, I found their marriage record. They were married at St. Pancras Church in London on May 6, 1829. 

Marriage record of Sir James Pearl and Anne Hawkins
Courtesy of Ancestry.ca

I was pleased to find accurate information about Lady Anne but it bothered me that there was a 19-year gap in her timeline. From there, I returned to the notes from the book Sarah gave me. A passage in the book mentioned Sir James and Lady Anne Pearl’s arrival in St. John’s. Upon reading the reference for that statement, I began reading through newspapers from 1829 in Newfoundland. In these newspapers, there was a section that stated the people arriving or departing from St. John’s harbor. It was here I found the announcement of the couples’ arrival on the HMS Britannia in November 1829. 

Arrival announcement of Sir James Pearl and Lady Anne Pearl
Courtesy of news.google.com

James Pearl died in 1840, leaving Lady Anne a widow. I wanted to find information about her life directly after his death. Another note in the book brought me back to a Newfoundland newspaper from 1840. The column described a fire that broke out at the estate of Lady Anne only 8 months after her husband passed which was so devastating that there was barely anything salvaged. 

A newspaper report of a house fire at the residence of Lady Anne Pearl Courtesy of news.google.com

I knew that she stayed in Newfoundland for 4 years after this event, but I could find no evidence of where she lived during that time; whether she rebuilt, moved in with one of James Pearl’s sisters, or something else entirely. I looked through many documents trying to find evidence of those 4 years. In our museum documents, I came across a section that stated that after the fire, Lady Anne moved in with her sister-in-law, Emma Blamey. However, from what I could find, James Pearl did not have a sister named Emma. From this, I assume the document meant Lady Anne's sister-in-law Eunice Blamey. 

The next document I found was about her departure in a similar column to the one announcing her arrival. With that, I had loosely mapped out her life in Newfoundland. 

A newspaper report of a house fire at the residence of Lady Anne Pearl Courtesy of news.google.com

The most difficult part of this project was finding her death records and gravesite. I could find no record of her death except for a phrase in the book which stated that she died of pneumonia on November 8, 1854, in her home at 37 Brompton Row, London, England. 

So I had a date but no solid evidence. The note in the book associated with the above information said that the author had obtained a copy of her death certificate, though this was no use to me. This left me alone in my search. I spent full days trying to find this grave, I think in some ways I was becoming obsessed with knowing where she was laid to rest. I had no luck on Find A Grave.com or Billiongraves.com so I needed to try something else. 

A search of various newspapers published in 1854 brought me to her obituary published in England (it is difficult to read but it is the first sentence under "Deaths"). A resource of the museum told me that though Lady Anne died in 1854, England, her death was not announced in Newfoundland until 1860 after her will was probated. So, I checked newspapers in Newfoundland from the year 1860 and found the obituary published in Newfoundland.

English obituary of Lady Anne Pearl (first) Courtesy of news.google.com

 

Newfoundland obituary for Lady Anne Pearl Courtesy of news.google.com

I used Google Maps to mark off the location of her last known address and did a search of every cemetery within a 20-kilometer radius. Right away I knew I could rule out any Catholic and Jewish cemeteries as Lady Anne was Anglican. This narrowed down my results a bit. Next, with the narrowed list of cemeteries, I looked up when these cemeteries were opened. Some of them were more recent than others, others were very old, but any cemetery opened after 1854 was ruled out. This left me with a shortlist of possibilities. For each cemetery, I looked up resources they made available to the public to see if I could do a database search. Some did have resources while others didn’t. I had to look up contact information for the ones I couldn’t check myself online in order to see if the cemetery themselves could look it up for me. I continued my other searches while I waited for their responses. Eventually, the Brompton Cemetery reached out to me with a link to their database, and finally, I found her.

Cemetery record of the death of Lady Anne Pearl
Courtesy of Brompton Cemetery

Lady Anne’s name was spelled “Ann” on her records, which likely threw off some of my searches. But in the record, it said her address and the date of her death which all matched up, though her address was listed as 27 Brompton Row as opposed to 37. She was there, in the corner of the cemetery. 

So I now had a picture of Lady Anne’s life, from birth to death. After finding her grave, I found another document through a simple google search which was an announcement of the probate of her will, further confirming my findings.

Will probate of Lady Anne Pearl
Courtesy of Google

You’ll be able to read a full blog post about the life of Lady Anne Pearl soon. I like to think I’ve done her justice and provided people with a better idea of how her life played out. I’ll likely continue to pick at finding documents until the end of my placement so I can finish up knowing I did my absolute best for her. 

We’re currently working on getting a photo of her grave so we can share it with guests and others who are interested in learning the history of Mount Pearl. I have been reaching out to friends who live in the London area to see if anyone would be willing to make a trip to the cemetery, so keep your eyes peeled for that in future posts!

-Kelsey