Anthony Jacques Cheeper/Clarke
19 July 1837 - 6 June 1918
An Inveterate Philanderer, Bigamist, Bankrupt, and who knows what else??
(Thank heavens someone in the family was interesting!)
Anthony Jacques Cheeper/Clarke19 July 1837 - 6 June 1918An Inveterate Philanderer, Bigamist, Bankrupt, and who knows what else??(Thank heavens someone in the family was interesting!) |
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This directory contains information and documents about Anthony Jaques Cheeper/Clarke. My interest in this story is that he is my great-grandfather in the name-line. (It's a rich irony that, before I discovered that his name and mine weren't the same, I had already published a paper on human identifiers, including a section on the unreliability of names).
In brief, this man:
In case that's whetted your appetite, this page provides access to the following:
In all, 45 public record entries for Anthony Jacques have been located. These are:
The photo at the head of this page is courtesy of Geoff Clarke, and came into Anne’s possession in late 2004. Until then, no-one in our line since at least Willie Tony (1892-1955) had any knowledge of what he looked like – and we suspect Willie Tony last saw him at age 12. Even now we have only two photos, at about 50 and 55, plus only a single photo of each of his second, third and fourth wives, Mary Wanless, Emma Terry and Kate Davidge. Needless to say, we'd love to find more.
Anthony Jaques Cheeper's birth certificate shows that he was born on 27 Sep 1837, at 32 Myddleton Square (in Pentonville, North London, north of Kings Cross, near The Angel tube station) – photo courtesy of Geoff Clarke. His birth was registered on 23 Feb 1838.
Anthony's parents were the identically-named Anthony Jaques Cheeper (1802-1837), ribbon manufacturer, and his wife Jane Cheeper formerly Bokenham (1805-1852). He was their 8th and last child in 12 years of marriage. But only 3 survived beyond the age of one, and he was the only surviving son. Based on information from the very last person to carry the Cheeper name, Ruth Phillips in St Austell, it's likely that one of Jane Bokeham (d. 1851) or her (first) daughter-in-law Catherine Spilsbury (m. 1858) carried the haemophilia gene. This bodes ill for female issue, and very ill for male issue, and if Jane was the carrier it would explain the low survival rate of her children.
Anthony senior died on 6 April 1837 at 34. This is based on the Obituary that Geoff Clarke found in the Coventry Herald of 14 April 1837 which read "On the 6th inst. at his house, 32, Myddleteon Square, London, aged 34, Mr A. Cheeper, late of this City". Because centralised registers for England and Wales did not begin until 85 days later, on 1 July 1837,there is no entry in the deaths register. We're not aware of the cause of death. This was 5 months and 19 days before Anthony junior was born, so presumably only 2-1/2 months after he was conceived. Anthony senior is not shown as deceased when Anthony junior's birth was registered 5 months after the event, but Jane is shown as the informant.
In 1839, Anthony senior's widow, Jane, remarried, to a Charles Teakle, who would therefore have been step-father to the infant Anthony junior.
In the 1841 census, the household included her new husband, Charles Teakle (Merchant), 33, with Jane Teakle (30?), and Anthony Cheeper (3). They were in London, at No 1 Barnsbury Villas, Liverpool Tce, Islington. There were also two FS (family servants?) Rebecca Jones, 25 and Emma Miller,18.
No evidence of Anthony jnr's whereabouts has been found between April 1841 (at 3) and October 1858 (at 21), although some interpolation is possible.
In the April 1851 census (when he was 13), Anthony Jaques is not in the Teakle household, which was in Kentish Town (St Pancras, North London). So he was presumably away at a school somewhere, or perhaps with relatives (and if so, then probably his mother's family in Suffolk).
It seems reasonable to assume that our Anthony Jacques Cheeper was from a reasonably wealthy family. He lacked a father, and was perhaps at distance from his mother and step-father. But as the eldest and only son of Cheeper, and perhaps as the only grandson on the Cheeper side, he may have come into assets and perhaps also an ongoing income, as early as 7 years of age.
At 21, Anthony married a young woman from his mother's village of Southwold (which is on the Suffolk coast). So it would seem likely that the Bokenham grandparents, or perhaps an aunt on his mother's side, may have taken him in while he was a child.
Anthony Jacques Cheeper married Catherine Ann Spilsbury in October 1858, when he was 21 and she was at least 21 (22-24?). She was born c. 1836 in Walsall, Staffordshire. How they met is unclear, but it appears that she was resident in the village of Southwold (Suffolk), and that is where the Bokenhams lived.
There were 10 offspring, b. 1859-1877, all Cheepers. Further details are provided on other pages about Catherine and about the offspring of Catherine and Anthony.
In the 1861 census, Anthony and Catherine appear, with their first child, 9-month-old Catherine, at 11 Ivy St, Birkenhead (which is the other end of 'the ferry 'cross the Mersey'). This was central, and close to the docks. Also in the household were two servants, one of them from Gravesend where the baby had been born, and Catherine's sister Georgina, aged 21. Anthony is shown as 23, and Catherine as 26. Anthony's occupation is difficult to read, but appears to commence with 'Travell...' and finish with 'Publish...'.
A mere 9 months later, they were in London, and Anthony was declared bankrupt in Jan/Feb 1862, at 24, about the time his and Catherine's third child, Albert, was born. The authority for this that Anne found is an entry in the London Gazette of 24 Jan 1862, which shows him as a commission agent, of Cleveland Rd, Kingsland (West Islington). Geoff Clarke had also found the bankruptcy listed in The Times of 25 January 1862, "under [Stg]300", examination 7 February 1862, address 51, Cleveland Rd. A couple of months later, their third child was born (who was to be the only one to have children). The birth certificate shows their address as 57 (cf. 51) Cleveland Rd, Islington. Anthony's occupation is shown as commercial traveller.
Over the next decade, he became a commercial traveller in books, and appears to have recovered financially to a reasonable extent, given that his household in 1871 included a governess, and generally appears to have done so for the three decades after that.
A letter exists (page 1, page 2), addressed by A.J. Cheeper on 18 Sep 1872 to the Duke of Portland, inviting subscription to a forthcoming 4-volume book on the History of Yorkshire, at a price £1/11/6 per volume. He gave as the return address 52 Carlton Road, Worksop (on the northern edge of Sherwood Forest. Carlton Road is the main north-south street, near the station). That address is otherwise unknown to us. (The provenance of the letter was Geoff Clarke?)
Over a period of 20 years, the records disclose at least 10 residential addresses:
Anthony and Catherine appear to have separated some time after mid-1876, when Anthony was 39, and by which time he had been in a relationship with another woman for 4-5 years, and had fathered at least one child by her.
We've found no evidence that they ever divorced. Catherine died three decades later in 1906. Many further details are available on Catherine, and on their children.
Anthony's household in York is shown in the census in Apr 1871 as including a governess, Mary Wanless. A child of Anthony and Mary was registered in London in Sep 1873, implying a liaison commencing no later than the end of 1872. In 1872, he was 35 and she was 26.
He had two more children with Catherine, born in York in Nov 1873, and in Great Yarmouth in Mar 1877. Catherine is the informant on the last birth entry; but she was on several others as well, so it's unclear whether he was still co-habiting with her at the date of the birth of their last child together.
Mary Wanless was born on 25 Aug 1846 in Lambeth (inner-west London). She was governess in the Cheeper-Spilsbury household in York in the census of Apr 1871. He was originally known to her as Anthony Jacques Cheeper, then as Anthony Clarke.
No marriage certificate has been found, and he was throughout that time still married to Catherine Spilsbury; so it was very probably a common law marriage.
There were 3 offspring, b. 1873-1879. The first, Harold, born in 1873, was registered in the name Wanless (the mother's surname being applied when a child was born out of wedlock). But the birth-entry was entered by volunteer indexers under both Wanless and Cheeper (confirming that this phase has caused confusion over the years to more than just the family). Further details are available about Mary and about the offspring of Mary and Anthony.
Anthony abruptly adopted the surname Clarke, apparently between 22 and 27 Sep 1877, at the age of 40. Mary's father, Joshua Paul Wanless, who was living in Birmingham, passed away. On 22 Sep 1877, Joshua's will was 'proven', showing as executors his son Joshua Charles Wanless, a merchant's clerk, and Anthony Jacques Cheeper, of St Paul's Chambers, 15A Paternoster Row in the City of London, Commercial Traveller. On 27 Sep 1877, Anthony and Mary's second child, Ethel Mary, was born. When the birth was registered on 30 October 1877, both parents, and the child, were shown as having the surname Clarke.
He appears to have consistently used Clarke for about the next 30 years 1877-c.1904 (at latest, until 1910), and to have not used Cheeper during that time (or at least not in any manner that has given rise to public records). Moreover, his children by his first marriage appear to have always referred to him as Anthony Jacques Cheeper, whereas his second, third and fourth wives and families appear to have always referred to him as Anthony Clarke.
He appears to have caused Mary to adopt the surname Clarke at the same time. There is no evidence of her using Wanless again, or Cheeper ever.
The third child, Stanley, born in 1879, were also registered in the name Clarke. The registrars of the births of their second and third children, and of Mary's death, appear to have accepted that their names were all Clarke. It is unclear whether the registrars also accepted that they were married. But acceptance that they had the same surname appears to have been sufficient to deliver the result that all of the birth entries and certificates give the appearance of the parents being married, even though they were not.
During their 10 years together, they appear to have had at least 4 residential addresses, in Kensington, Willesden, Brentford and Ealing (all of which are inner west London, not far from Mary's origins in Lambeth, and his own in north London).
We've considered the following possible reasons why he might have changed his name:
Why Anthony chose the name Clarke is also not clear. The name does not appear to be in any of his lines. A reasonable surmise is that the relative anonymity of a common name was a useful adjunct to his purposes.
In the April 1881 census (left, right), Anthony (occupation publisher) is shown with Mary and their three children at Grosvenor House in Ealing. There were two servants, one a Companion / Lady Help (Mary was presumably chronically ill at the time).
Mary died on 5 March 1882, at the age of 35, leaving him with children aged 2, 4 and 8. And a governess. Further details are available about Mary and about the offspring of Mary and Anthony.
In the April 1881 Census, the Clarke household in Ealing includes a 'Companion to Mary', by the name of Emma Terry. It is unclear when she came into the household. Because there is no evidence that she knew of Anthony's previous surname, it is reasonable to surmise that it was after September 1877, at which time Emma was 22, and Anthony 40.
Mary was presumably chronically ill during this period, given that the cause of death on Mary's death certificate stated Bright's disease (a category then used for "kidney diseases that would be described in modern medicine as acute or chronic nephritis"), 4 years duration.
At Mary's death, Anthony was a commercial traveller, but was saddled with children aged 2, 4 and 8. A simple solution presented itself. He arranged for his governess to continue to look after the children. But Emma appears to have driven a hard bargain, because they were formally married only three months after Mary passed away.
Anthony wasted no time implementing the plan. The birthdate of their first child discloses that Emma was pregnant to him within a fortnight of Mary Wanless's death.
Anthony and Emma were married on 17 June 1882 in a registry office in Bromley. He was 45 and she was 28. Mary's death certificate would presumably have been sufficient to establish that he was free to marry, despite the fact that he was still married to Catherine Spilsbury (who died 24 years later, only a few months before Emma did).
On the marriage certificate, Anthony Clarke listed his father as a ribbon manufacturer. (Anthony Jacque Cheeper's father is known to have been a ribbon manufacturer, from Pigot's Commercial Directory of 1839, and from his marriage certificate – although in earlier Directories he was listed as a haberdasher, hosier and/or linen draper, and as Cheper as well as Cheeper).
He was known to her as Anthony Clarke, but also, once, later in life, as Anthony Jacques Clarke. There is no evidence that she knew he had originally been a Cheeper. And there is evidence that the eldest son of the three Wanless children, Harold, never knew of the Cheeper name, or, if he did, suppressed the information from his family, and carried the secret to the grave.
There were 4 offspring, b. 1882-1889, all of whom survived. All were Clarkes, this time seemingly legally so. (But he had committed bigamy by marrying Emma, and if that had been discovered then presumably the marriage would have been null and void, and the surname of Emma and their children would have reverted to Terry ...). Further details are provided about Emma and about the offspring of Emma and Anthony.
During the first 10 years of their marriage, they had at least 4 residential addresses, in Sidcup (north Kent), Surbiton (Surrey), Lewisham (on the then new, southern outskirts of London, in Sussex), and Deal (on the southern coast of Kent).
Geoff Clarke is aware of folklore in the Terry family to the effect that Anthony, presumably during this period, was the librarian to Queen Victoria, and kept his own carriage and horses. A quick web-search confirms that such a post existed, but during that period it would appear to have been generally occupied by minor aristocracy rather than entrepreneurial-but-struggling publishers. Barbara Sidebotham, completely separately from Geoff, is aware of a similar story within the Davidge line, but the post was said to be bookbinder to Queen Victoria. I've found no evidence that such a post has ever existed, but it's a great story that's entirely in keeping with Anthony's trail of deception.
By mid-1884, but possibly as early as mid-1883, Anthony appears to have been co-habiting with another woman. This was within 2-1/2 years of his marriage to Emma, and between the births of the second and third of their four children. By the time of the birth of Emma's fourth child in 1889, he had four children in the other household.
In the April 1891 census, Anthony, then 53, was shown as a Traveller, Day Goods. The household was at 3 Downs Fair? Villas (?), Black St., Deal, Kent. The household appears to have comprised Emma (then 36), the younger two of the three Wanless-Clarke children (aged 13 and 11), plus the four Terry-Clarke children (aged 8, 6, 4 and 2). Mercifully, there was also a 51-year-old Governess - who, this time, Anthony does not seem to have later run off with. But Anthony also appears in his other household in the same census, albeit under the pseudonym Robert.
Anthony appears to have abandoned Emma some time after the census in Apr 1891 and before the census in 1901. The earlier part of the period seems more likely.
There is no evidence of a divorce.
Emma died on 22 November 1906, at the age of 51. Further details are available about Emma and about the offspring of Emma and Anthony.
Within 2-1/2 years of his marriage to Emma Terry, Anthony appears to have been co-habiting with another woman as well. Most likely in mid-1883, and no later than mid-1884, a young woman called Kate Davidge was pregnant to him. He appears to have established a household with her by no later than the time of birth of their first child, some time between the end of 1883 and early 1885.
Kate was probably a maid in his household. She came from a peasant family in Dorset, and it seems unlikely that they would have met any other way. If so, then she was probably in the Terry household in Sidcup and/or Surbiton in 1882-84 (at age 17-19). But just possibly she was in the Wanless household in Ealing after the census of Apr 1881 (when she would have been 16) and before Mary's death in Mar 1882 (by which time she would have been 17).
Between 1884 and 1889, Anthony had children alternately in the two households.
Anthony left Emma some time after the census in 1891 (by which time he was 64, and had been in a marital relationship with the other woman for at least 7 years, and had fathered 5 children by her), and before the 1901 census (when he is not in Emma's household).
The first formal records of Anthony with Kate are the certificates of baptism of Violet Maude Clarke and Ernest Clement, on 20 Jun 1886, at St Johns Cardiff. No birth certificates have been found for them.
Violet is recorded as being 1 year old. Various documents suggest a birthdate for her between 15 February 1884 and 20 Jun 1885. On her death certificate, her birthsdate is given as the earliest of all – 15 Feb 1884 (1885 seems more likely); and her place of birth is empty, even though her son was the informant. Possibly she never knew much about her own birth. The irony is that it appears she may have known her father until she was about 20, which may be longer than any other of his 29 children, unless he was in contact with the third Cheeper, Albert, later in life.
Kate was born 18 January 1865, so in mid-1883 she was 18 and he was 47.
He was known to her as Anthony Clarke. No marriage certificate has been found, and he was married to two women already, one in the name in which he was known to her, and both marriages survived longer than the relationships; so she was very probably a common law wife.
There were 11 offspring, b. 1884/85-1904, all Clarkes. Further details are available about Kate and about their offspring. As he'd done with Mary Wanless, he used Clarke for himself, his wife and his children, and Birth Registrars consistently acted as though the two were married.
In the census entry for 1891, left-side and right-side, Anthony is shown using the pseudonym Robert, at their Lewisham address, with Kate, together with the first 5 of their 11 children, and a servant. The pseudonym was presumably necessary because he'd already used 'Anthony' with the Emma Terry household in Deal. (The Terry household had been only a few streets away in Lewisham, only a few months previously; and possibly the census enumerator was aware of that, and a nom de census seemed appropriate).
In the census entry for 1901, Anthony, then 63 and listed as 'commercial traveller, is in South Norwood. Kate is shown as "about 50", even though she was actually 36! The last of their children wasn't born until 3 years later, but all of the other 10 are there, aged 10 months, and 2, 3, 5, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 16 years. (The 10-month old died 2 months later).
During their c. 20 years together, residential addresses are apparent in:
It's unclear when he abandoned Kate, but it appears to have been between 1900 and 1904. Kate Antoinette is reported to have told her daughters that he left when she was 13, which would have been in 1900. If so, it raises questions about the paternity of the last child, Earl Rudolph, born in 1904, whose birth certificate shows Anthony as the father.
In 1900, Anthony was 63, but the Davidge children were aged 0, 2, 3, 4, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14 and 16, i.e. only the eldest may have sent off to find their own way. In 1904, it was both better and worse, with Anthony an even tireder 67, and the children 0, 6, 7, 8, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18 and 20. We've found no evidence that any of the children managed to get much education, or to get decent jobs, and hence anything that they may have been bringing into the household after Anthony abandoned it would have been very meagre.
We've been unable to establish much about Kate's life between 1904 and the early 1920s, but it probably wasn't much fun. She re-married a Phillip Davies in 1923, only 58, but very probably exhausted already. She died in 1931, at 64. Further details are available about Kate and about Kate and Anthony's offspring.
By interpolation, Anthony left Kate, and reverted to the name Cheeper, when he was about 65-70. He had a (possibly brief) liaison with a further woman.
His 6th child by Kate (and my grandfather), Willie Tony, apparently joked about Anthony having run off with the maid or cook. (He possibly never realised that Anthony had done that at least once, and possibly as many as three times, before he did it to Kate). So it's possible that the fifth common law wife was a servant in the Davidge household during the 1900-10 period.
The only evidence of this relationship is the 1910 birth certificate and the 1911 death certificate for a child, Donald Anthony Cheeper. The informant on the birth entry, dated 27 April 1910, is Anthony Jacques Cheeper, commercial traveller (books). He would have been 72 at the time. She was 31. The birth and death certificates show an address in Sheffield.
Amy was probably a common law wife, as no marriage certificate has been found (although by then both of his wives were deceased, so he was free to marry). He was known to her as Anthony Cheeper.
Amy was born at Eton, but grew up in Croydon. Croydon is in the south of London, which was Anthony's main stamping-ground from about 1873 until at least 1904. It's open to speculation that Amy moved back from the Buckinghamshire asylum she was working at in Apr 1901, and became a maid in the Davidge household. (But, if so, then Amy first knew him as Anthony Clarke). Alternatively he may have met her after he'd abandoned the Kate Davidge household, between mid-1904 and mid-1909 when she became pregnant to him.
Donald died in Jan 1911, aged 10 months, at the same address. The informant this time was Amy (possibly indicating that Anthony was no longer in the household, or possibly not). Anthony was 73, and had been running very hard for a very long time. So he may already have been at a fairly low ebb when he was with Amy in Sheffield.
Limited further details are available about Amy and their offspring.
Anthony entered a workhouse in York 6 years after Donald's birth, in 1916, at 79. This implies that he was destitute. He'd been based in York in the period 1870-73, but he'd put no roots down there, and none of his children were there (except for Ernest Teakle, b. 19 Jun 1871, d. 5 Aug 1871, who was buried there).
His death certificate shows that he died on 6 June 1918. It is in the name Anthony Jacques Cheeper. His place of death is given as the York City and District Infirmary, with his address at the time recorded as the Central Hotel, York, V.D. (?), aged 81 years (although he would have actually been 80-3/4 at the time). The cause of death was listed as senile decay, so imprecision in his age is understandable. E. Jenner, occupier, was present at the death. Under occupation, it said commercial traveller.
It appears that he died alone. The last 2 of his wives were still alive, as were at least 18 and as many as 23 of his 29 offspring. On the other hand, it would appear that many, and maybe all, of them were treated less than well, and at least some appear to have been abandoned, at a time when there was no concept of a social safety net. No will has been found. Given that he died in the poorhouse, it's unlikely that there was either a will or assets.
The Cheeper name is (all but) dead. Long live the adopted name Clarke. And long live the rich confusion of human existence, and the diversity and lack of absolutes that it delivers us.
Of Anthony's 29 children:
In mid-2006, the tree of Anthony Jacques Cheeper/Clarke shows:
Some details follow (which might need some re-checking ...).
Of the 7 Cheepers who survived childhood:
Of the 17 Clarke children who survived childhood (counting Mary's first as a Clarke, which is how he knew himself):
We're missing a lot of information; and we'd love to know more!
This a page within Roger Clarke's Family Web-Site
Contact: Roger Clarke and/or Anne Kratzmann
Created: 19 October 2005; Last Amended: 28 January 2008
