The Lymath Mysteries (Continued)

Lymath Gravestone at Deddington, Oxford

When I first started this blog, one of the earliest posts was titled "The Lymath Mysteries." The article touched on my frustration with trying to discover the origins of my great-great-grandfather George Lymath. Five years later I'm still frustrated.

George Lymath (1817-1864), was a coachman who died at the age of 47 at Westminister Hospital in London. Searches of the 1841, 1851 and 1861 Census have found no trace of George, however, the 1857 marriage certificate for George and Elizabeth Boorer records that George's father was a Thomas Lymath, Schoolmaster.

Lymath is a very unusual surname so it is almost certain that George is a descendant of Richard Lymath of Brailes in Warwickshire. Richard was buried at Brailes in 1796. Richard's oldest son, Thomas, was baptised at Brailes in 1750, and apprenticed as a blacksmith in Little Tew in the north of Oxfordshire where he married and raised a family.

Lymath Gravestone at
Little Tew, Oxford

Another son, Richard, also apprenticed as a blacksmith and moved to Chipping Warden in Northamptonshire, where he married Ann Willson. Two of his sons, however, returned to Oxfordshire and settled in Wardington. There is also circumstantial evidence that Richard and Ann had a third son named George who was buried in Wardington in 1824. George's son John emigrated to the United States in 1871 and settled in Nebraska.

Richard and Ann's daughter Hannah (1784- ?) had an illegitimate son when she was 18. William Harwood Lymath was baptised at Marston St Lawrence in Northamptonshire in 1803. In 1839 he married Mary Ann Geary of Crick, Northamptonshire. William and Mary Ann had four children born in Northamptonshire. About 1847 they moved to Birmingham. When William died in 1850, Mary Ann was pregnant with her sixth child, and applied for parish relief in Birmingham. Birmingham, however, obtained a removal order, and Mary Ann and her children were sent back to Marston St Lawrence. Marston St Lawrence unsuccessfully appealed the removal. The proceedings were reported in Aris's Birmingham Gazette on 12 Apr 1852:

Birmingham Borough Sessions
Birmingham respondents; Marston St. Lawrence, Northamptonshire, appellants.—This was an appeal as to the removal of Mary Lymath and six children.—Mr. Spooner, for Birmingham parish, stated that he should prove a birth settlement of the pauper's husband (who was illegitimate) in Marston. That parish, however, contended that the birth had taken place there fraudulently, that the mother of the pauper's husband being pregnant, was fraudulently removed by the officers of the parish there she was then residing, and taken to Marston to be delivered, and cast a burthen upon that parish. The appellants also set up an alleged settlement of the husband by hiring and service in the parish of Wiggington, in Oxfordshire. Mr. Spooner then proved the alleged birth, but upon enquiry into the case, the Recorded said he did not see any evidence whatever to support such suggestion.—Mr. Field, for Marston parish, then attempted to support the settlement in Wiggington, but it appearing that the husband always came home and brought his box and clothes with him during the last week of each year, the Recorded thought that there was no case of hiring for a year, and the order of removal from Birmingham must be confirmed.

And while this is all very interesting, it doesn't get me any further with discovering the origins of my great-great-grandfather.