The Orrick Sisters’
Middle Street
3 Portobello Alley
1 Coppin Street
Occupation: Shoemaker & Boatman
Shoemaker Thomas Orrick was born in Deal to Alexander Orrick and his wife Jane in 1812. He married Mary Bowman in 1833 and by 1852 the pair had had eight children, though sadly in 1848 they lost their third son, John, when he was just ten years old. In 1854 Mary died, and it would seem that everything fell apart from then on.
For some reason, he gave up shoemaking and, like his father before him, became a Boatman an occupation that, when he had work, meant he was away from home, sometimes for days at a time.
By this time his eldest son, Francis had gone into the army; Alexander had become a bricklayer and married Elizabeth Mumbray in Deal where they stayed and raised their family; Richard also became a Boatman but died aged twenty-five in 1868. As for Temperance, after one court appearance for being drunk and disorderly in 1861, she met a soldier named George Murphy and moved with him to Farnborough, Hampshire. After George’s death in 1869, she then lived with Beerhouse Keeper Josiah Fletcher as his wife. Although Temperance takes both men’s names and has children by them, it appears that she never actually married either man.
A Life of Crime
Then there were the three youngest Mary Jane, Ann Elizabeth, and Maria Harriet Ann. Their early lives are tragically well documented as, through lack of care and guidance, they all drifted into a life of crime.
The first we know of this is in February 1858 when it was reported in the newspapers that Mary Ann Orrick was charged at Deal Petty sessions with stealing several items of children’s clothing as well as bread and butter, jam, sugar and some money. A ladies petticoat was also taken which was later wrapped in a bundle and taken to Mr. Wellden’s pawnbroker shop in Middle Street. The assistant there having heard that such items had been stolen summoned the police. Mary Ann then produced a note from her father asking for a loan against the bundle. As Thomas was at sea the case was adjourned and Mary Ann was “…. humanely delivered into the care her grandmother….” Once back on dry land Thomas and Mary Ann appeared together in court. Thomas admitted writing the note but said he hadn’t examined the contents of the bundle, so he knew nothing about it. The magistrates felt though that Mary Ann could not have acted alone and as there was no evidence to prove this both father and daughter were let off with a caution.
Although The Deal, Walmer & Sandwich Telegram states that this is Mary Ann it also says that she was eleven so this probably it was her elder sister Mary Jane.
A State of Near Nudity
July 21 1858 Deal, Walmer & Sandwich Telegram
Just a few months later, in July, Thomas was again at sea when all three girls, who were then, according to the newspaper report, aged five, seven and ten, were again charged with stealing clothes from a house in Water Street. In court, Thomas was described as “…a widower having no person in his house to take charge of his children, was at sea pursuing his usual avocation…” and as such, the magistrate ordered that the children be taken to Eastry Union until their father could be summoned. The girls, it was said, “…were almost in a state of near nudity without shoes, stockings or bonnets….” What happened when Thomas returned is currently not known.
In January 1859, the two younger girls are again caught stealing. This time they robbed the larder of “..everything eatable..” belonging to a Mr. Thompson of Farrier Street. Yet again Thomas was at sea and yet again, on his return, he was summoned to appear with his daughters. Luckily for them this time, Mr. Thompson didn’t appear and so the case was dismissed but Thomas was reminded of his duty to care for his children and to prevent them from wandering the streets in the state in which they appeared. He was told to “…keep them clean and decently clad and sent to the Infant school…”.
And so, it goes on, with the girls left to their own devices, their father at sea, and no one actually providing or caring for them.
Juvenile Delinquents
South Eastern Gazette – Tuesday 15 May 1860
In May 1860, the three girls are again all in court, this time charged with stealing from their grandmother, Jane. Thomas, as you might have guessed, was at sea, and their grandmother had been away nursing and so the girls all still all under twelve years old had been left, yet again, to fend for themselves. On Jane’s return, she found her counterpane and a brooch had been stolen from her room. In court, she explained that she had “…nailed her bedroom door shut to prevent access…”. Presumably, she didn’t trust her granddaughters or her son who by then were all living with her. These poor uncared for children were this time sentenced to six weeks in prison.
In May 1861, Mary Jane and Ann Elizabeth stole four eggs and two half pints of cream. On being caught by Nicholas Mockett near The Glen at Walmer they said they had eaten some of the food and then showed him where they had thrown the empty shells. Thomas told the court that the girls had left his house three weeks before and he had not seen them during that time.
On this occasion the magistrate said he didn’t want to send the girls to prison so asked Thomas if he would be “…bound for their good behaviour for twenty-one days…” Thomas though declined to make himself responsible for their behaviour, ”…as his occupation called him away to sea….”. So the magistrate sentenced them to six weeks, and this time it was with hard labour in Sandwich gaol.
Once out of prison, in July, the two girls were once again being charged with stealing peas from Edward Tucker in Ringwould. For this, they received another month, with hard labour, in Dover Gaol.
Capes & Umbrellas
In September 1861, all three girls were in trouble again, this time for stealing a cape and two umbrellas. One can only guess that they were living rough and using the umbrellas as a makeshift shelter and the cape to keep themselves warm. Mary Jane, being caught with the cape, cooperated with Special Police Constable Thomas Ralph and she took him to where one of the umbrellas was. Ann Elizabeth and Maria then took him to where they had discarded the now damaged second umbrella.
By this time the girls were well-known, and it was stated that Mary Jane had been to prison eight or nine times and Ann Elizabeth five or six. Their sentence on this occasion was to be sent first to Dover jail for six weeks, then to a Reformatory for fives
years, but we currently don’t know where this was. Maria, then aged nine, was “…ordered to be restored to her grandmother.” A grandmother, who like their father, didn’t or couldn’t care for her granddaughters and, as we have seen, had no control over them anyway.
In 1863 Thomas himself is in trouble, with fellow boatmen Thomas Obree and James Ovenden, who were all charged with having 33lbs of contraband tobacco in their possession. Luckily for Thomas though, there was not enough evidence to convict him, or Obree, and only James Ovenden was charged and fined £100.
Then Prison
Female convicts at work in Brixton Women’s Prison
On her release from the reformatory, Ann Elizabeth found work as a general servant to Mrs. Sarah Collard in Albion Terrace, Deal. However, this wasn’t to last long as she stole several items of jewellery from her employer. Once caught just as before she co-operated entirely with the authorities. In court Ann Elizabeth had no one to speak up for her and before being sentenced the Recorder addressed her saying “ ..she had lived a wretched life, the paper before him showing the amount of crime was really unusual in one so young….” Sadly there was to be no leniency and Ann Elizabeth was sentenced to seven years penal servitude.
The records, for Brixton Prison for 1867-68, found on FindmyPast, tell us that her behaviour was ‘very good.’ When the 1871 census was taken, she had been moved to the then newly opened Woking Prison which was the first purpose-built female convict prison that having been built in 1869. There she would have been employed in the prison kitchens or laundry, or as a needlewoman or knitter giving her a skill that would hopefully help her find employment when she was released which was in about 1874. Little did she know then that her life was soon to take a turn and all for the good.
When or where she met coachman James King we didn’t know but the 1881 census shows her living with him as his wife at Leigh Road Stables in Islington, and with them are their two children, three-year-old Henry and one-year-old Lily. They don’t actually marry though until 1883 and in 1884 another son George is born. They then moved to Godden Green, Seal near Sevenoaks where they remained until their deaths. Ann Elizabeth, or Annie as she was known, died in 1925 and James two years later in 1927 when he left £466 0s 6d to their children.
Prostitution
Elizabeth being sent to prison didn’t deter Mary Jane from her life of crime. She appears twice more in court in 1870, this time in Canterbury. first for stealing 3s. 6d. from a man who had accompanied her to a house and on leaving her had found that his purse had been robbed of the money. Maria denied all knowledge of the purse and the case was dismissed. Then for not having attended a medical examination under the Contagious Diseases Acts 1866-9. It seems that Mary and had moved from stealing from others to feed and clothe herself to selling herself instead!
It was also in 1870 that their father Thomas died in Eastry Union. He was buried in Hamilton Road Cemetery on 28th of December.
It seems likely that the sisters remained in contact and that Maria may have visited her sister Temperance in Farnborough as it was here that she met and married Thomas Gregory a carpenter in 1869. They set up home in nearby Aldershot where they raised six children with one son dying in infancy. Maria herself died in 1929 in Bushy, Hertfordshire Thomas had died in 1918 so she probably had moved there to live with one of her children.
Mary Jane also moved to Hampshire. Maybe she travelled there with Maria, but Mary Jane continued to get into trouble though. In 1873 she appears three times in the Hampshire Advertiser, the last time being convicted for riotous and violent behaviour. After that, she completely disappears from records, so we don’t know if she came to a sad end. It may be also be hoped that she changed her name and found the care, stability and even the love that she and her sisters, as children, must have desperately craved for.
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