Mary Roberts was born on 17 September 1796 was baptised a month later, on 13 October, at St John Horsleydown, Bermondsey: ‘Mary, daughter of Abraham and Ann Roberts, Gent.’ We know from the London Gazette entry that Abraham had moved from East Lane to Horsleydown Lane, so this must be the same couple, although the description of Abraham as a Gentleman is unexpected, especially given that we know he was a ropemaker two years earlier and was headed for the debtors’ gaol. This I take to be an affectation, not unusual at the time amongst the middle classes.

I don’t know what became of Mary, although if she survived she must surely have moved back to Devon, along with her siblings, after the deaths of Abraham and Ann. In 1851 a Mary Roberts, aged fifty-seven (so born circa 1794/5, marital status not given on the census) was the servant of a Charlotte Chapman, the wife of a ‘captain of vessels’, of 19 Green Street, in the parish of Charles the Martyr, Plymouth. Mrs Chapman was born at Antony, Cornwall and Mary Roberts’s birthplace is given as Torpoint, Cornwall (and not London) – familiar places in the family history. I suppose it is just possible this was her?