Life story retold by Alistair Lax, Iain Anderson and Charlotte Watson, family members
John DREW was born in 1795 in the Bermondsey area of London, most likely to William DREW and his wife Sarah REED; he was the youngest of their five children. William worked in the leather trade, as did Sarah’s father and several of the extended Drew family. All were from the Southwark region. Street names, such as Tanner Street and Leathermarket Street, still survive in the area. We know that John’s grandfather was William DREW, an attorney who styled himself as a Gentleman, and who was married to Elizabeth CHAMBERLAINE.
Details of John’s life are sporadic. It is possible that he had already been married and presumably widowed before he moved to Cambridge. It was there, in 1819, that he married a local girl, 20 year old Mary-Ann MASON. She was 2 months pregnant when they married and their first daughter Sarah DREW was born later that year. Jane Mary DREW followed three years later, although for some reason she was not baptised for 18 months. A year after Jane Mary’s birth, her mother Mary-Ann died at the age of 24, leaving John with a three-year-old and a one-year-old daughter to bring up. The following year in September 1824 he married Jane BAUGHURST in St Mary, Newington, in London, and we presume he had moved back to live there by then. It is not known if they had any children.
John was listed as a labourer on his daughter Sarah’s baptism and a cordwainer (a shoemaker) on Jane Mary’s. We next catch up with him at his younger daughter’s marriage in St Mary, Newington over 20 years later in 1848, when he is recorded as a gas fitter. Jane Mary’s husband, David SIMPSON, had been born in Scotland, but moved to London and was a publican. From 1854 for a number of years he was the landlord of the Sea Witch public house in Greenwich, taking over from William Drew, who may have been John Drew’s brother. David and Jane Mary Simpson and their children later relocated to Scotland.
John Drew’s other daughter Sarah moved to Bath, had a son and daughter with James BEER, but died young of tuberculosis. Her daughter also succumbed to tuberculosis (aged one), but the son survived, later moving to London to do a variety of jobs including pawn broking. Descendants from both John Drew’s daughters are alive today and show a DNA linkage.
At some time John and Jane Drew moved to Reading, living in Crown Cottages in the St Giles parish in 1851. By 1861 they had moved to Sussex Place. He died in 1867, aged 72. There is strong evidence that he was, at least latterly, a gas fitter: he is noted as such on both censuses in Reading, his death certificate and on his daughter Jane Mary’s Scottish death certificate. The gas industry was new and expanding; the first gas company opened in London in 1812 and Reading was not far behind in 1819; it is likely that jobs were available to attract low skilled workers. John’s earlier claim to be a shoemaker three years after stating that he was a labourer can perhaps be questioned, as shoemaking is a highly skilled job.
Jane DREW: We know very little about Jane DREW (née Baughurst), and no direct record of her birth has been found. She was born in the tiny hamlet of Quidhampton in Wiltshire; the village does not have a church and is part of the Bemerton Parish. She was the daughter of Charles BAUGHURST, a carpenter and his wife Ann; she had at least five other siblings. At some stage the family moved from Wiltshire to the St Pancras area in London, where presumably she met widower John Drew.
She died just three days after her husband at the age of 64. Both were buried on 15th December 1867.
unmarked graves, consecrated part of the cemetery