The sad finale of Alfred Pearson Bentley

Back in 2015, I told the story of Alfred Pearson Bentley, my maternal great great grandfather. Alfred left his wife Annie (nee Reed) and four young children in Salford, Lancashire in about 1878, and sailed to America. Ostensibly he planned to establish himself in the States before bringing his family to join him. But in 1879, having settled in Boston, he bigamously married another English migrant, Annie Jane Smith. 

The first Annie was left in financial hardship to raise her family alone. Family lore has it that she was led to believe that Alfred had died in America. It's unclear whether or not deliberate deception was involved, but having listed herself as 'married' on the census of 1881, she declared herself a widow on the 1891 census. She died in 1899, apparently still believing that Alfred was dead.

Alfred and the second Annie returned to England some time in the 1880s with their Boston-born son, John Alfred (who shared his name with one of Alfred's other children). They settled in Annie's home county of Cheshire, only 33 miles from Salford, and there Alfred continued his career as an engraver. John, who worked as a clerk in an insurance office after leaving school, remained living with his father after his mother's death in 1914. 

I noted in my previous post that Alfred was baptised into the Church of England in 1890 at the age of 41. He died in September 1922, aged 73. My cousin records on his family tree that his death was said to be due to 'senile debility and cardiac failure'. 

The next record I had of John Alfred appeared in the 1939 England and Wales register, when he was an inmate of the County Mental Hospital in Cheshire. The last sad trace I could find of John was his death in a Cheshire mental hospital in September 1971. He left a considerable estate of over 12,000 pounds, presumably inherited from his parents. As far as I could tell, he remained unmarried and had no descendents. 

A new twist in the story

That was as far as the story went when I wrote about it ten years ago. But recently I've come across newspaper accounts and court records from 1922 that give a dramatic twist to the life of John Alfred and the death of Alfred Pearson Bentley.

On 12 November 1921, John Alfred Bentley, described as a 38 year old insurance clerk, was arrested for 'attempting to procure the commission of an act of gross indencency with males.' (Homosexual activity, even in private between consenting adults, was a criminal offence in England until 1967.) After appearing in the Birkenhead County Court on 24 November 1921, he was committed for trial three months later. His father, named in newspaper reports as Alfred Pearson Bentley, put up bail of 200 pounds. But rather than going home with Alfred, John disappeared.

A bench warrant for John's arrest was issued when he failed to show up in court in Chester both on 28 February and on 1 March 1922. He again failed to appear on either 10 July or 14 July. By now the judges' patience had run out. Bail and surety was 'estreated' i.e. forfeited. 

The Halifax Evening Courier reported on 15 July that the judge called John's elderly father, Alfred Pearson Bentley, to the witness box to explain why his son had not appeared. Alfred said he had made every endeavour to trace his son and to persuade him to turn up at his trial. 

'I am sorry that any act of mine should be done to defeat justice. When I went bail for my son, it was solely with the idea that he would be more comfortable at home than in confinement,' he said. 'He was always a very good son, considerate, generous and helpful; in fact all that a son could possibly be...He deceived me as he evidently had not the courage to come and face his trial... '

The judge asked, 'Did you write the letter I told you to write? I gave you an address in Paris.' 

To which Alfred replied, 'I wrote on Monday.'

'And you have had no reply?' 

'No.'

It's unclear what this address in Paris was about, or whether Alfred's letter had any effect. It doesn't seem to have prompted John to return immediately. According to a report in the Belfast Telegraph of Saturday 9 September, John was eventually arrested at his father's home two months later, on Tuesday 5 September. Alfred is reported to have collapsed at home the same day and died in hospital the following day, Wednesday 6 September 1922.* 

Perhaps the shock of John's arrest had hastened his death. Or possibly John had returned home in response to hearing of his father's imminent demise. Either way, it seems certain that the strain, and disappointment of the recent months had a dreadful and tragic impact on Alfred's health. He literally died of a broken heart.

Today it's difficult to imagine the depth of embarrassment and concern a parent in the 1920s would feel if a son was publicly exposed for homosexual activity. Alfred claimed he put up bail so that his son could await trial in the comfort of home. But it's also likely he wanted to spare John the experience of spending time in prison. Men accused of 'gross indecency' did not fare well in the prison environment.

Then there was the worry that he might forfeit the money he had put up as bail. While he was quite well off, 200 pounds was still a considerable sum in 1922. And unless he was complicit in John's disappearance, he would surely have been concerned about his whereabouts and well-being.

Finally, another great anxiety for Alfred must have been the possibility that someone from his first family might see and recognise his name in the papers. The same story carried in the Halifax Evening Courier appeared in newspapers across the country.  'Alfred Bentley' was a common enough name, but 'Alfred Pearson Bentley' was unique. He faced the possibility that his previous deceptive life might be exposed.

It was a dreadful situation for Alfred. Yet it's difficult not to see the irony of his words in court, 'He deceived me as he evidently had not the courage to come and face his trial'. How might his first wife Annie, had she been alive, have responded to that? The betrayer had surely been betrayed.

An unclaimed fortune?

John, who probably knew nothing of his father's past life, finally came to trial on 24 October 1922, and was found guilty of 'attempting to procure acts of gross indecency'. He was sentenced to twelve months imprisonment. How this 'crime' and his imprisonment related to his mental health issues is one of those things that can be imagined but never be known. It seems he led a very lonely life. 

Nearly three years after John's death in 1971, Bell and Joynson, a company of solicitors, advertised in The People magazine of 12 May 1974 for relatives of John Alfred Bentley, 'no matter how distant', to contact them, as they 'may hear something to their advantage'. By 1974 all of Alfred's other children were long deceased. I wonder if anyone ever enjoyed the benefits of Alfred Pearson Bentley's fortune?

*According to the probate record, Alfred died on 9 September. But if the newspaper was already aware of his death on that date, it seems more likely that 6 September is correct.

Annie Reed

Market place, Barnard Castle 
(cc-by-sa/2.0 - © Ben Gamble )

Now that I've traced back through Alfred Pearson Bentley's forebears, it's time to have a look at his wife Annie Reed. As I've mentioned before, Alfred and Annie were married in Dewsbury in Yorkshire in 1869, and moved to Salford in Lancashire before 1872. In 1879, soon after the birth of their fifth child, Alfred sailed to America, apparently promising to send for his family as soon as he was settled. Instead he entered into a bigamous marriage in Boston with another Annie (Anne Jane Smith from Cheshire in England) and poor Annie in Salford either believed, or made believe, that he had died in the USA.

The castle at Barnards Castle
photo by Francis Hannaway
via Wikimedia Commons

At first glance it's not clear how Alfred and Annie Reed could have met, since he was born in Hunslet, part of the city of Leeds in West Yorkshire and she grew up in Barnard Castle, a market town in Teesdale, County Durham. However, her father, Henry Reed (b 1804), a carpet weaver, originally came from Leeds, so perhaps Annie's childhood family maintained some connections with Henry's family in Yorkshire. Her older half-sister, Jane, also married in Dewsbury in Yorkshire in 1853 and went on to live there, providing another connection to that county.

Annie's childhood

Annie's mother, Margaret Waite, was Henry's second wife. His first wife, Elizabeth Stout, bore him at least six children, all girls, but only two, Sarah (b 1827) and Jane (1831), survived childhood. Elizabeth herself died soon after the birth of the last ill-fated child in 1834.

Annie was the youngest of Margaret's four children. Hannah (b 1838) and John (1841) were a part of her childhood, but Annis (1844) died soon after birth. Henry, Annie's father, died in 1859 when she was about 13 years old.

In the 1861 census she was the only child still living at home with Margaret. The financial hardship caused by the loss of Henry's income might have led to Annie being sent to her relatives in Yorkshire, or perhaps she found work as a servant there. Her mother continued to live in Barnards Castle until her death in 1875.

Marriage to Alfred Pearson Bentley

When Annie married Alfred at the age of 23, she most likely thought her chances of having a more comfortable life than her mother were fairly good. Living standards for the working class in England had been improving over the previous years, and Alfred's skills as an engraver gave him good prospects for employment. He may well have inherited his father Ben's ambitiousness.

Their first child, James Henry was born in Dewsbury in 1870, and they were still living there at the time of the 1871 census. By the time their second child, Margaret Ann, was born they had moved to Hollinwood St, in the Ordsell district of the city of Salford, Lancashire. Their neighbours in this area of booming population included a "gold beater" and a lithographic printer along with masons, bricklayers, shop keepers and mill hands.

Sadly little James died in 1873. The following year Annie gave birth to another son, John Alfred, then Walter Horatio in 1876 and Ernest Reed in 1878. It was then that Alfred senior decided to go to Boston.

"Widowed"

Perhaps he and Annie really believed that he was going to find a better life for his family in America and they would join him there, but then, somehow, he just got sidetracked from his plans after he arrived. Or perhaps the promise of a better life was just the story he told Annie, while secretly planning all along to meet up with Miss Annie Jane Smith in America. Or possibly his marriage with Annie had fallen apart and they tacitly agreed that, since they couldn't afford a divorce, he should conveniently disappear to America.

Whatever the case, Annie was still describing herself as 'married' on the 1881 census. By 1891 she had begun to call herself a widow. Whether she had received news that led her to believe this to be the case, or simply found it best to make this her story, she clearly didn't expect Alfred to return. Did she ever learn that he and his new wife and son had returned from America in the late 1880's and were living just across the county border in Cheshire? We'll probably never know.

Life must have been hard for Annie as a single mother with four children. In the 1881 census the family had an elderly woman, Jane Bastow, boarding with them, but she was on Parish relief, so she couldn't have provided much in the way of rent.

Arthur St, Pendleton (just north of Liverpool St)
from 1930 map of Manchester*
Click to enlarge.

By 1891 the family had moved to Arthur St in Pendleton, between Langworthy Park and the Salford cattle markets. Annie was taking in washing and ironing to make ends meet, and had another lodger staying with her. Any hope she might have had of her children having a better standard of living had gone west with Alfred. Nineteen year old Margaret had by now left home and was working as a servant, and the two older boys had jobs, John as a bricklayer's labourer and Walter as an office boy. A year later Margaret, still single, gave birth to a son, John Henry. She never married.

Annie died in 1899 at the age of 53. The doctor who wrote the death certificate gave "cirrhosis of the liver, ascites, syncope" as the cause of death. (Thanks to my cousin David for this information). It's impossible to know whether the cirrhosis and the associated ascites (fluid in the abdomen) were the result of alcohol abuse or some other cause, but her last few years must have been spent in very poor health. Neither the registrar nor the person providing the information were aware that Alfred was still alive and well. Annie was described on the death register as "widow of Alfred Pearson Bentley, an engraver journeyman".

*Map extracted from: 
http://www.artus-familyhistory.com/Manchester%201930/Main%20Map.html. 
The site has a wonderful collection of old maps from all over Britain.

Harriet Smith, gentleman's wife

St James Church, Tong, built 1727
 © Copyright Humphrey Bolton
licensed for reuse under this CC Licence

Harriet Smith is one of those people whose story can only be told in terms of "daughter of..", "wife of...", mother of...". Anything we know of her character or actions has to be deduced or guessed.

She was born in Armley, near Leeds in Yorkshire, on 18 July 1817, the second daughter of James Smith and Martha Naylor. Her baptism in September that year took place in the Bethel Independent Chapel in Leeds. Her mother's family, the Naylors, were stonemasons from Pudsey, a market town between Leeds and Bradford. Her father's background is obscured by the difficulty of accurately tracing a name like James Smith.

Harriet married Ben Bentley in October 1839. The ceremony took place at St James church in the tiny village of Tong, chosen perhaps because it was mid-way between Pudsey and Ben's home town of Gildersome. Their first child, William, was born the following April. Perhaps Harriet had a miscarriage or still birth between William and her next child, Martha Ann, born in 1845. John Henry arrived in 1847, Alfred Pearson in 1849 and daughter Harriet in 1851. Then came a twelve year gap before Walter Smith was born in 1863.

I've described previously how Ben Bentley became a little too ambitious in making money and in 1856 found himself sentenced to four years penal servitude. He was in Portland prison in Dorset, on the south coast, from 1857 until December 1860. For his wife Harriet the whole experience must have caused both shame and anxiety. She would have had little or no opportunity to visit Ben so far away from Yorkshire. Did she miss him? Was their re-union a joyful one, or did Harriet take a while to come around to accepting Ben back into the marriage bed? We can only guess.

The death in 1861 of her daughter Martha, still in her teens, must have been a great sadness for Harriet. More sadness would have surrounded the bankruptcy in 1865 of her son William. Her first grandchild, as far as I can tell, arrived in 1870 with the birth of a son, James, to Alfred Pearson Bentley and his first (and only legitimate) wife Annie Reed. Several more grandchildren followed.

Harriet died in Dewsbury on 19 December 1876 at the age of 59. She was buried in the Soothill Nether cemetery at Earls Heaton, and the burial is recorded in the Dewsbury Quaker records. The record notes that she was "NM", not a member. Ben's burial, twenty one years later, appears in the same records without the "NM", so perhaps he was, or became, a member. Less than twelve months after Harriet's death he remarried.

To Boston and back - Alfred Pearson Bentley

The SS City of Richmond
Alfred may have arrived in America
in 1879 on this ship or one like it.

When Walter Bentley married Alice Hough in 1898, his father did not attend the wedding. Although his father's name, Alfred Pearson Bentley, was recorded on the register, it was followed by "deceased." But Alfred was far from deceased, in fact he was living less than 60 miles away in  Cheshire, with his second wife and son. Whether Walter or his mother Annie, Alfred's first and only legal wife, knew this is one of those intriguing mysteries.

According to family lore, Alfred, an engraver by trade, left England for America in the late 1870's, with a promise to send for his wife Annie (nee Reed) and their four children when he had established himself there. But, the story goes, he died in America, leaving the widowed Annie in Salford to fend for herself as best she could. Her youngest child, Ernest, was only a few months old, and the oldest, Margaret, was seven.

What the records show is that Alfred did indeed go to America. But he didn't die there. Soon after arriving in the US, Alfred married Annie Jane Smith, the daughter of John and Catherine Smith. Their wedding took place in Boston, Massachusetts on September 3, 1879. Both claimed that this was their first marriage - which was true at least for Annie Jane. Alfred's parent's names, Ben and Harriet, were noted on the marriage record, along with his occupation, 'dial writer' (a trade sometimes taken on by engravers).

North Grove St, Boston, 1888. Alfred and Annie Jane
were living at no. 11 in 1884.
The fire house, no. 16,  is circled in red.*

Alfred and Annie were still living in Boston at the time of the 1880 US census, and his occupation was then listed as 'engraver'. Their son, John Alfred, was born in Boston in 1884. While the child may have been named after Annie Jane's father and Alfred himself, it was a strangely insensitive name to give him, since Alfred already had a ten year old son named John Alfred back in England.

Sometime between 1884 and 1890 the family returned to England, to Cheshire, which was Annie Jane's home county. They remained there for the rest of their lives. John Alfred was their only child.

All sorts of questions spring to mind but seem unanswerable. Did the first wife, Annie Reed, know that her husband had gone through a bigamous marriage in America? Or did Alfred somehow arrange for false evidence of his death to be sent to her? In the 1881 census she was still listed as married, but she described herself as a widow on the 1891 census. Was that her belief, or a face-saving fib? Divorce was not an option because of the cost, and admitting that she had been betrayed and abandoned for another woman after ten years of marriage would have been hard.

While bigamy was illegal, it was not unusual among the working classes in England at a time when divorce was out of their reach. According to one researcher, it was considered tacitly acceptable only if the three parties involved were all aware and agreed to the arrangement, and the husband was willing to support both families. Annie Reed Bentley was taking in laundry to support herself and her family in 1891, so it doesn't appear that Alfred made any financial arrangements for her.

And what about Annie Jane Smith. How and where did she and Alfred meet? He was born in West Yorkshire but lived his early adult life in Salford in Lancashire. She was born and raised in Weston, on the Cheshire coast near Birkenhead. Her mother died some time in the 1860's, and Annie was no longer living with her father in 1871, but I haven't been able to trace her on the census of that year. Did they meet in England and travel to America in order to marry, or was it a chance encounter in Boston that led to their relationship? Did Annie Jane Smith know that Alfred had been married, in fact was still married, with a family back in England, or did he deceive her too?

All Saints' Church, Runcorn
(photo from Wikimedia)

Alfred's story takes another odd turn in  December 1890 when, at the age of 41, he was baptised into the Church of England at All Saints' church, Runcorn. Unlike his marriage, this was not double-dipping. His parents, Ben and Harriet, belonged to a non-conformist denomination and maybe for this reason Alfred had not been baptised as an infant. Was he simply seeking social conformity, or was he looking for peace from a troubled conscience? If he ever confessed his bigamy to the parish minister, it remained a secret.

Alfred outlived both of his wives and his son Walter. He died in September 1922 at the age of 73, leaving all his estate of over £1500 to his Boston-born son, John Alfred. His first wife, Annie Reed Bentley, died of cirrhosis in Salford in 1899 at the age of 55, leaving no will. We'll never know the full story, but perhaps my cousin David's description of him as "The Cad" is apt.

*Map from the Boston Fire Historical Society site.

Annie Reed

Name:	Annie REED
Sex:	Female
Father:	Henry REED (    -    )
Mother:	Margaret WAITE
Individual Facts
Birth	1849
Census	1891 (about age 42)	Pendleton, Lancashire
Death	1899 Salford, Lancs
Marriages/Children
1. Alfred Pearson BENTLEY (1849- 1922   ) Married 4 Sept 1869 Dewsbury Yorkshire
Children	James Henry BENTLEY (1870-1873)
	Margaret Anne BENTLEY (1872-    )
	John BENTLEY (1874-    )
	Walter Horatio BENTLEY (1876-1916)
	Ernest BENTLEY (1878-    )

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More about Annie Reed:

To Boston and back - Alfred Pearson Bentley

Alfred Pearson Bentley

created 14 October 2015

Name:	Alfred Pearson BENTLEY
Sex:	Male
Father:	Ben BENTLEY (1819- 1897   )
Mother:	Harriet SMITH ( 1817 - 1876 )
Individual Facts
Birth	16 Mar 1849	Wortley, West Yorkshire
Census	1851 (about age 2)	116 West St, Leeds, Yorkshire
Census	1861 (about age 12)	Bond St, Dewsbury, Yorkshire
Census	1891 (about age 42)	Runcorn, Cheshire
Emigration	1891 (about age 42)	New York to England
Census	1901 (about age 52)	Higher Bedington, Cheshire
Census	1911 (about age 62)	Higher Bedington, Cheshire
Occupation		Dial writer/engraver
Marriages/Children
1. Annie REED (1849-    ) Married 4 Sept 1869 in Dewsbury, Yorkshire
Children	James Henry BENTLEY (1870-1873)
	Margaret Anne BENTLEY (1872-    )
	John BENTLEY (1874-    )
	Walter Horatio BENTLEY (1876-1916)
	Ernest BENTLEY (1878-    )
2. Annie SMITH (1850-    ) Married 3 Sept 1879 in Boston, Massachusetts
Children	John Alfred BENTLEY (1884-    )

More about Alfred Pearson Bentley:

To Boston and back - Alfred Pearson Bentley

Walter Horatio Bentley (1876-1917)

Individual Summary

29 March 2015

Name:	Walter Horatio Bentley1–4
Sex:	Male
Father:	Alfred Pearson Bentley (1849-1922)
Mother:	Annie Reed (1844-1899)
Individual Facts
Birth	Jan 1876	Salford, Lancashire, England1–7
Residence	1881 (about age 5)	Relation to Head of House: Son; Salford, Lancashire, England2
Residence	1891 (about age 15)	Relation to Head of House: Son; Pendleton, Lancashire, England3
Residence	1901 (about age 25)	Relation to Head of House: Head; Pendleton, Lancashire, England4
Occupation	1904 (about age 28)	Hydraulic driver on docks (from Margaret Annie's baptism record); Salford, Lancashire, England
Residence	2 Apr 1911 (about age 35)	Marital Status: Widowed Relation to Head of House: Head; Pendleton, Lancashire, England1
Death	Jun 1917 (about age 41)	Salford, Lancashire, England5
Marriages/Children
1. Alice Hough (1879-1909) Married 5 Feb 1898
Children	Walter Horatio Bentley (1898-1978)
	Alice Hannah Bentley (1901-1969)
	Margaret Annie Bentley (1904-1994)
	Harriet Ann Bentley (1906-1928)
	Albert Bentley (1908-1915)

More about Walter Horatio Bentley:


Notes:

        1. 1911 England Census (Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.), Class: RG14; Piece: 23935.

        

        2. 1881 England Census (Ancestry.com Operations Inc), Class: RG11; Piece: 3973; Folio: 48; Page: 41; GSU roll: 1341949.

        3. 1891 England Census (Ancestry.com Operations Inc), Class: RG12; Piece: 3204; Folio: 121; Page: 21; GSU Roll: 6098314.

        4. 1901 England Census (Ancestry.com Operations Inc), Class: RG13; Piece: 3718; Folio: 121; Page: 31.

        5. England & Wales, Death Index, 1916-2007 (Ancestry.com Operations Inc).

        6. FreeBMD, England & Wales, FreeBMD Birth Index, 1837-1915 (Ancestry.com Operations Inc).

        7. Select Marriages, 1538–1973 (Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.).