Pomeroy Lumbards

Seafaring Lumbards! By Victoria Legg

A Daniel Pomroy Lumbard, 'Mariner', born in Exmouth Devon in 1791 appears in the records when marrying Nancy Barter at St Mary the Virgin Church in Dover on 19th July 1819 at the age of 28.

They had at least 5 children, 

Daniel Pomroy christened on 25th May in 1823, 

Jane in 1825, 

Charles in 1827,

Elizabeth Pomroy is born in 1829 and Maria Adelaide in 1831. As he was a sailor there is the assumption that he arrived in Dover by sea and settled in the town. Also records show that there were other Lumbards already living in Dover but it is not known whether they were relatives.

In 1840 a Daniel Lumbard is recorded as becoming the Licensee of the Silver Lion Public house in Middle Row, Dover. Daniel (snr) would be 49 at this time and the 1841 census records that a Jane, Elizabeth and Maria Lumbard are all staying in a house in Middle Row, but with no parents minding the young teenage girls. Were Daniel (snr) and wife Nancy busy at the pub which was also in Middle Row?

On 1st October 1844 Daniel Pomroy (jnr) married Elizabeth Jones, her father Walter Jones is a local labourer, and both Daniel and Elizabeth are noted as being of ‘full age’ that is at least 21yrs old. They marry in the church of St Peter & St Paul Charlton, Dover. Both father and son are recorded as Mariners on this marriage certificate. Whether either of them was a Ferry Captain in those early years (as has been passed down through the family) we do not know. This was a time when travel across the Channel was a far more risky enterprise. At this time Dover didn't have a protected harbour and passengers had to be rowed out to their vessels, to either a sailing ship or to a new paddle steamer!

Young Daniel and his wife Elizabeth have a son on 20th September in the following year of 1845, also christened Daniel, and in 1847 daughter Elizabeth Sarah is recorded as born in the North Sea, her birth date given as the 7th February, not the best time to be in the North Sea! She is christened later the same year in June at St Mary’s in Dover.

Tragically Daniel died the very next year at the young age of 25yrs. He is buried on 26th November 1848 in St Marys Church Dover.

The 1851 census records Daniel (snr) as living in Limekiln St., in Dover at the age of 60 but he is sharing the accommodation with other men, as his wife Nancy died in 1846.

Then in 1861 a census shows an Elizabeth Lumbard 43, a widow and Greengrocer, who is living with the unusually named Justinian H Coleman, a mariner from Rye also 43 who is head of this household. They are living in Paradise Street Dover, a known poor area of Dover down by the docks. Daniel and Elisabeth, the children of Daniel and Elizabeth, are recorded as living with them, they are 16 and 13 respectively, Daniel is a shop boy, Elizabeth a servant. There are 5 other children as well, Ann M who is 10, Justinian H, 8, Mary J 6, John H 4 and Henry H just 1 year old.

But an Elizabeth Lumbard died the following year in 1862, Justinian died in 1865. . . . If it is the same Elizabeth Lumbard, Daniel’s widow, she le not only her teenager children Daniel and Elizabeth who would’ve have been 17 and 14, but also her children from Justinian. Did daughter Elizabeth have to care for them?

However Elizabeth married Thomas Langley four years later in 1866 (just aer Justinian’s death).

There are quite a few records of various Lumbards who were born, married and buried at St Mary the Virgin church in Dover, mostly related in someway to Daniel Pomroy (snr).

Another son of Daniel (snr’s), Charles returns to his fathers home of Devon and becomes a fisherman in St Andrews in the port of Plymouth. He married Mary and later has a daughter Mary A, son Charles Edward but also son Daniel Pomroy Lumbard who is born in Plymouth in 1867 who also becomes a sailor. Dad Charles died at the age of 43 in 1870 and Daniel died aged 66yrs in 1933 in Plymouth. He, as was his brother Charles both still living with their elderly widowed Mother when Daniel was 33 (in 1901) so it doesn’t look likely that either Charles or Daniel married and maybe its here where male line ‘Daniel Pomroy’ line ends?

‘Pomroy’ is an unusual name and the Dover Pomroy Lumbards appear to be proud of the Pomroy name passing it down through the generations . . . . Berry Pomeroy is a small town in Devon lying just east of Totnes, north of Plymouth and south of Exmouth and was named aer the Pomerai family who came from Normandy at the time of William the Conqueror (Pomme = French for apple). This family inhabited this town for over 500 years. The Lumbard namecould possibly stem from a Germanic tribe from Scandinavia who settled along the River Elbe later travelling south and invading that part of Italy, now known as Lombardy!

There are several other Lumbard marriages back in Dover, Elizabeth Pomroy, daughter of Daniel P (snr) married Frederick Philip Gillespie in Dover on Christmas day 1855.

In 1861 her father Daniel (snr) is living in the Buckland Union Work house in Hougham just west of Dover, his death is recorded in 1866.

The family line comes through Elizabeth daughter of Daniel jnr, Elizabeth married Thomas Langley. Their daughter Sarah Jane married Sgt William Kemp, Williams and Sarahs third and only surviving child Dorothy Constance married John W Legg. . . .

https://www.ancestry.co.uk/mediaui-viewer/tree/19215100/person/829099955/media/3c210726-54b2-40e5-a058-4ba02ff15a9d?_phsrc=gLS912&...

Author VICTORIA LEGG