By  1851 most of the family are bakers or confectioners, although Joe is a butcher. He is married, with two daughters and living at 3 Wellington Street, in Bethnal Green. Joe Purssell’s first wife is Mary Ann Forsbrey. They marry at St George’s the Martyr, Southwark on 1st October 1940. He is 25, and she is 23. Her father Joseph Forsbrey is a butcher.He and his first wife Mary Anne Foresbury may have had more children. But at that  point they had seven year old Mary Jane, and Priscilla Grace who died the following year, and is buried at Christ Church Spitalfields aged 3yrs 10 months. His son William is born in 1852, the same year Priscilla dies.

He emigrates to Australia sometime between 1852  and 1860 where marries Mary Ann Crook (1837–1893) in Australia in 1860. He is 45 she is 23.  It is also unclear whether Mary Ann 1 has died, or whether he has a bigamous marriage to Mary Ann 2. Joe and Mary Ann 2  have a daughter Martha who is born in 1860 and dies in 1861, and another daughter, Emma who is born in 1863 and dies in 1874, and Joseph Benjamin Purssell who is born and dies in 1865.

In the meantime Mary Jane, and William, Joe’s children from his first marriage  emigrate to Australia arriving in Melbourne on 29 Aug 1864. Mary Jane appears to stay in Australia, and dies in Williamstown, Victoria in 1927.

Charlotte is living at 118 Cheapside, and lists herself as a shopkeeper, though the 1856 London Post Office Directory calls her a biscuit baker. She is listed on the line below James and Alfred.

Purssell James and Alfred, biscuit bakers, 78 & 80 Cornhill, & 4 & 5 Finch Lane

Purssell Charlotte (Miss), biscuit baker, 119 Cheapside

Thirty five year old William is also married, to Eliza Newman, and living at 3 Lea Road (parish St Mary’s Leyton). The ages they give in the census, 40, and 37, are doubtful, but the rest of the details – his profession – confectioner, and place of birth- Limehouse, are right. Eliza is an Essex girl, born at Stanford Beeches.  William was in partnership with James, trading as William and James Purssell, in Cornhill.

They dissolve the partnership in March 1854, probably when William decides to retire.

Twenty nine year old James is living above the premises in Cornhill, and the census return is for one building comprising 78 and 80 Cornhill, & 4 French Court. On the census return, James says he is employing thirty three men, four women, and two boys. He and his twenty one year old wife Eliza (nee West) are sharing the building with 4 house servants, 3 shopmen, 4 biscuit bakers, 4 porters, and a stock keeper.

James and family move to New York in 1859, where he set up a catering business on Broadway near Twenty-First Street.

John Roger is also living above the shop, but in his case 20 Ludgate Hill, just down from St Paul’s and advertising himself as

“John R. Purssell & Comp., 20, Ludgate Hill, opposite the Old Bailey : French and Italian ices to-day. “French, English and Italian confectioners. Dinners, rout and ball suppers provided.”

“Soups and jellies, a large assortment of pastry, biscuits, cakes, &c. A large refreshment room for ladies and gentlemen.”

He had married Elizabeth Davies on January 11 1848 at St Pancras Church, with both of them shown as living in Euston Grove. By 1851, twenty six year old John had two sons, two year old John Junior, and one year old Alfred. Both the boys are listed as being born in the parish of St Martin’s Ludgate, so presumably at 20 Ludgate Hill. John says he is employing five men, and has two confectioner journeymen, and a waiter living at Ludgate Hill, along with two female household servants. It is a very young household, the oldest person is 27 year old Catherine Diddy who is one of the servants. The shop staff are a good London mix resembling a branch of Costa Coffee today with an east-ender, a French confectioner, and a German waiter.

Alfred, the youngest brother,(he’s 20) is also living above the shop at 10 Hart Lane in the City. 5 New London Street is also shown on the census return. He calls himself a confectioner & baker, and says he is the brother of the head of the household. I think we can safely assume that Hart Lane is John’s bakery. Alfred is sharing the house with Thomas Joyce and William Payne, both bread bakers, James Ridge a fifteen year old errand boy, and Hannah Pennal, a general servant from Hull.

Adding together the households at Ludgate Hill, and Hart Lane would give the correct number of employees for John’s business, and it makes sense to have them living in-house, and for a member of the family to be on each premises. It also makes sense for the youngest member of the family to be doing the hard work, and baking was a tough business.

According to A.N. Wilson in The Victorians, the baking life was a tough one. It only became worse during the London Season when bread orders increased. Eleven at night was the start of a baker’s day, when he made the dough. He was able to sleep on the job for a couple of hours while the bread rose, then had to do the rest of the physical tasks of preparing rolls and loaves. Kneading was sometimes done with feet, perhaps making for a less-than-clean product. The bakehouse was alarmingly hot as well, up to ninety degrees Fahrenheit. Some bakers had to deliver the bread they made, too. They only had five to ten hours off per day and all but none during the Season. Wilson says statistics show London bakers rarely lived past the age of forty-two. Wilson, A.N.,  The Victorians, 2011.

Finally, Frances Jane, the future Mother St George is living in the Convent of the Faithful Virgin, Norwood where she had been professed a nun at the age of 21 in 1848. In just over three years time, she will be with Florence Nightingale at the Crimean War.

I really like the fact that both these two make a point about how to treat refugees….. Just so you know who they are, Alan O’Bryen, Lady O’B’s son marries Lady RP’s grandaughter

Letter from the Mayoress of Hampstead September 1914

From The Tablet Page 18, 12th September 1914

ST. DOMINIC’S, HAVERSTOCK HILL: BELGIAN REFUGEES.— The St. Dominic’s Parish Magazine publishes the following letter from the Mayoress of Hampstead (Mrs. E. O’Bryen) on behalf of Belgian Refugees in the district : “I appeal to the inhabitants of Hampstead for the Belgian Refugees, who consist mainly of women and children, and who are arriving here in hundreds almost daily. After the gallant resistance that Belgium has offered, with the result that their country is overrun by the German army, it is only right that we here in England, who are luckily exempt from this scourge of invasion, should do something to help these people who have lost their homes and all they possess. They are arriving absolutely penniless, and in most cases with only the clothes they stand up in. The War Refugees Committee have asked me (i.e., the Mayoress) to make a Refugee centre in Hampstead, and I shall be glad to hear of any lady or gentleman willing to offer a home to one or more Refugees, and would ask them to apply personally to me here at the Town Hall, Haverstock Hill, giving me particulars as to the numbers and sexes of the Refugees they would be willing to accommodate. Those who are unable to help in this way would be giving great assistance by sending any clothes, new or old, for the use of these Refugees, either to me here (at the Town Hall), marked : ‘For the Belgian Refugees,” or direct to the general receiving office, 39, St. George’s Road, S.W.”

Lady RP’s Appeal for Montenegrin Families 1912

From The Tablet Page 28, 19th October 1912

FOR MONTENEGRIN FAMILIES.

SIR,—May I appeal through your columns for help on behalf of the families of the brave Montenegrins who are fighting in the present sad war? They are so very poor that all contributions will be welcome, either in the form of money or provisions, such as tinned food, &c. ; blankets or woollen clothing especially will be acceptable, their mountain climate being extremely severe in the winter.

I will undertake to forward any goods which your readers may be kind enough to send me. Cheques should be crossed ” Union of London and Smith’s Bank,” and large parcels should be addressed, carriage paid, to Lady Roper Parkington, Montenegrin Consulate, 24, Crutched Friars, E.C.

Yours faithfully,

MARIE LOUISE PARKINGTON. 58, Green Street, Park Lane, W.,

October 16, 1912.

I’ve stuck this in because there seems to be quite a lot of family marrying family. I think canon law is broadly similar in the Catholic Church, but this came to hand first.

The Book of Common Prayer 

A TABLE OF KINDRED AND AFFINITY WHEREIN WHOSOEVER ARE RELATED ARE FORBIDDEN BY THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND TO MARRY TOGETHER.

A man may not marry his:

• Mother
• Daughter
• Father’s mother
• Mother’s mother
• Son’s daughter
• Daughter’s daughter
• Sister
• Father’s daughter
• Mother’s daughter
• Wife’s mother
• Wife’s daughter
• Father’s wife
• Son’s wife
• Father’s father’s wife
• Mother’s father’s wife
• Wife’s father’s mother
• Wife’s mother’s mother
• Wife’s son’s daughter
• Wife’s daughter’s daughter
• Son’s son’s wife
• Daughter’s son’s wife
• Father’s sister
• Mother’s sister
• Brother’s daughter
• Sister’s daughter

A woman may not marry her:

• Father
• Son
• Father’s father
• Mother’s father
• Son’s son
• Daughter’s son
• Brother
• Father’s son
• Mother’s son
• Husband’s father
• Husband’s son
• Mother’s husband
• Daughter’s husband
• Father’s mother’s husband
• Mother’s mother’s husband
• Husband’s father’s father
• Husband’s mother’s father
• Husband’s son’s son
• Husband’s daughter’s son
• Son’s daughter’s husband
• Daughter’s daughter’s husband
• Father’s brother
• Mother’s brother
• Brother’s son
• Sister’s son

We regret to announce the death, on December 31, at 10.30 a.m. at St. Peter’s Priory, Hinckley, of the Rev. Wilfrid Lescher, 0.P., P.G., aged sixty-nine. He was buried. at Mount St. Bernards, Charnwood Forest, on January 5, the Requiem being celebrated at Hinckley by Very Rev. Father Bede Jarrett, 0.P., while Father Laurence Shapcote, Father Vincent McNaliob, Father Lewis Thomson, Father Michael Browne, 0.P., were present in the choir. The chief mourner was his nephew, Mr. Edward Lescher. Father Wilfrid had been a well-known figure in English Catholic. life for many years. He came of the old Lescher family, of Boyles Court, Brentwood, a younger son of Joseph Sidney Lescher and Sarah Harwood, but was born at 17, Church Row, Hampstead on October 2, 1847. His school days were spent at the famous Catholic Academy of Mr. James Butt, at Prior Park and at Ushaw, whence he passed to join the Dominican Order at Woodchester, September 3, 1864. Ordained priest on March 8, 1873, he was stationed successively in various Dominican Priories, besides remaining for nearly seven years as chaplain to Mathew Liddell, Esq., of Prudhoe Hall. Later he obtained leave to study theology at Louvain, under Father Lepidi, 0.P., at present Master of the Sacred Palaces in Rome, and returned to England in 1884. In 1889 he was elected Prior of Woodchester, and in 1910 Prior of Pendleton. He also was for three years chaplain to the contemplative Dominican Nuns at Carisbrooke. But his main work consisted in preaching and writing. In the latter field he was a strenuous fighter, especially for the Anti-Vivisection Society (on the general committee of which he served for some years) and in Catholic controversial literature. But of late years he has been especially prominent in the discussed authenticity of St. Dominic’s founding of the Rosary. Following the Papal tradition he defended the conservative view in letters, pamphlets and articles, which exhibited his dogged loyalty of character and the warmth ‘of feeling which lay behind an exceedingly impassive appearance and manner. After three months of general enfeeblement resulting from a slight paralytic shock, he died of suffusion of blood to the head on the last day of the year. Those who followed his intense devotion to the Rosary will notice with a sense of fitness that his last Mass was said on the octave day of Rosary Sunday. A staunch friend, a just and fatherly ruler, his going will be felt by a wider circle than his own Order.—R.I.P.

13th January 1917

561 MAIN STREET, NEAR HARRISON STREET. EAST ORANGE, N. J.

It is well nigh the universal custom now to place the arrangements for formal dinners, suppers, etc., in the hands of caterers, for experience has conclusively proved that in this way only can the most desirable results be attained. Of course the success of an occasion in which a collation bears a prominent part is dependent directly upon the quailty of the refreshments and the efficiency of the service, and therefore the selection of a caterer is a matter calling for no little care and discrimination. The residents of East Orange are excellently well served in this respect, for in Messrs. Purssell Brothers they have a firm of caterers who have few equals and no superiors. gentlemen are natives of New York city, and were formerly connected with the celebrated ” Purssell Company ” of Nos. 910, 912 and 914 Broadway. They utilize spacious and finely-appointed premises at No. 561 Main street, and do a general catering business, besides carrying on a first-class bakery. The main floor is 25 x100 feet in dimensions, and every facility is at hand to insure the comfort of patrons and render it easy to fill orders promptly and accurately. The bill of fare is very extensive and varied, comparing favorably with those offered at the leading New York establishments, and as the cooking is excellent and the service remarkably prompt and efficient, it is natural that this establishment should enjoy a large as well as a select patronage. A great varietv of creams and ices are obtainable here, and are furnished by the quart and delivered at residences at moderate rates. French, Vienna and American bread and rolls will be delivered every morning, and patties, pastry, etc., are made fresh every day. Some of the specialties of this concern are fine assorted cakes, Dundee, lady and wine cakes, gingerbread, birthday cakes, Purssell’s English plum cake. plain or decorated, English plum pudding, English mince meat, and Purssell’s calves’ foot jelly for invalids. The finest quality of French fruit is always in stock. Dinners, wedding breakfasts, suppers, etc., will be supplied with every requisite, and orders by telephone (No. 316), are assorted prompt and careful attention.

The name of Purssell is prominently connected with bakery interests in the east, and, as associated with any enterprise in that line, is a guaranty of the excellence of the articles manufactured by the house. James Purssell, the father of the Purssell Brothers, was born in London, England, and made his home in his native city until 1859, carrying on business as a baker and confectioner at Cornhill for many years.

Crossing the Atlantic to the New World, he established himself in the same line of business in Broadway, New York City, near Twenty-first street, and his superior knowledge and understanding of the business soon brought him a constantly increasing trade. His growing patronage from time to time necessitated the enlargement of his facilities in order that he might meet the demands of his patrons, for the excellence of the articles manufactured soon won him a most enviable reputation, and the name of Purssell connected with pastry or confectionery was taken as a guaranty of superior quality. Mr. Purssell continued to conduct a large and profitable business in New York until his death, which occurred March 4, 1887. Previous to that time a stock company was formed, which uses the name of the Purssell Manufacturing Company. After his death, however, the family had no further connection with the corporation, the new company simply securing the right to use his name, which they found gave their business a prestige otherwise unattainable.

Mrs. Purssell bore the maiden name of Eliza West, and she is still living. Their children, in order of birth are as follows:

• James,
• William A.,
• Arthur J. ;
• Eliza C, wife of J. Louis Kight, of London, England;
• Francis J.,
• Charles,
• Charlotte J.,
• Mary L.
• and George.

In 1887, after his father’s death, James Purssell, Jr., established a bakery business in East Orange (N.J.), continuing the same until 1889. when the business was reorganized under the name of Purssell Brothers, the partners being Francis J. and Charles Purssell. Their mother still resides in East Orange.

Francis J. Purssell, who is the managing director of the firm, was born in New York city, April 19,1863, and his brother, Charles, who is financial manager of thebusiness, was born in New York, May 31,1865. Both were educated in the Catholic schools in the city of their nativity, and in early life began working in their father’s establishment, so that they are fortified by practical experience and long training for the work they now have in charge. Their business in East Orange has assumed extensive proportions, and they employ a large force of competent men at the head of the various departments. The place is characterized by a neatness that would be difficult to improve upon, and the artistic manner in which they put their products upon the market is one of the attractive features of the enterprise, and combined with their honorable dealing, has brought them a very gratifying success. The brothers are both energetic and enterprising business man, whose careful oversight of their interests has made them prosperous, and Essex county numbers them among her most reliable and highly respected businessmen.

Biographical and genealogical history of the city of Newark and Essex County, New Jersey .. Volume 1: Isaac T Nichols: published 1907

 The Tablet, Page 21, 10th September 1910

On September 1,Mother Mary Aquinas, of the Convent of Mercy, Crispin-street, E., celebrated the Silver Jubilee of her profession. In addition to the blessing of the Holy Father, the jubilarian was the recipient of many congratulations from clergy, convents, the friends of the Night Refuge and Homes in Crispin-street, with which she has been so long connected, and the past and present pupils of St. Joseph’s School. Mother M. Aquinas is a sister of the late Bishop Bellord. Three of her sisters, two of whom survive, became Sisters of Notre Dame, one being at present Sister Superior at Mount Pleasant Training College, and the other Sister Superior at Everton Valley, Liverpool.

Page 22, 30th April 1938

MR T. E. LESCHER, O.B.E.

Mr. Thomas Edward Lescher, 0.B.E., of Birkdale, managing director of Evans Sons, Lescher and Webb, wholesale druggists of Liverpool, died on April 24th, after a fall, probably caused by a seizure, while skating at an ice-rink in Liverpool on the previous evening.

The elder son of the late Frank Harwood Lescher, his mother was Mary O’Conor Graham, daughter of Patrick Grehan, J.P., of Mount Plunket, Co. Roscommon. He was born on June 12th, 1877, and was educated at Stonyhurst, becoming the thirty-eighth President of the Stonyhurst Association in 1917, and later acting as Chairman of the Stonyhurst War Memorial Council. During the War he was responsible, under the National Health Insurance Commission, for the supply and control of drugs and chemicals needed by the public, and in 1920 his services were recognized by the grant of the O.B.E. From 1933 to 1935 he was Vice-Chairman of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, and for the two following years he was Chairman. He was also a Freeman of the City of London.

In matters concerned with the Church he gave unsparingly of his time and abilities, and at various times he was Chairman, and later Vice-President, of the Westminster Catholic Federation, Chairman of the Catholic Confederation of England and Wales, President of the London Circle of the Catenian Association, Vice-President of the Catholic Reading Guild, Vice-President of the Liverpool Archdiocesan Branch of the Board of Catholic Action, and Chairman of the Liverpool Branch of the Catholic Truth Society. In addition to his notable abilities and unbounded energy, he had a capacity for enthusiasm which enabled him to throw himself with gusto into whatsoever he undertook, into games as well as into his business activities, and his work for the Church. At skating, in which pursuit he lost his life, he was particularly proficient, holding the Gold Medal of the National Skating Association, and being a member of the council of that body.

Mr. Lescher married on October 21st, 1903, Ella Mary, daughter of Louis Marino Casella, of Hampstead, who survives him with ten children. His third son, the Rev. Sydney George Harwood Lescher, was recently ordained in Rome.