Lionel Bull Ingram (1822–1875)

Part of the Ingram-Green family tree (Great-great-grandfather)

Lionel Bull Ingram was the first member of the family to occupy Hedgeman’s Farm in Barkingside in Essex. He had fifteen children including James Ingram, who was to take over the farm after Lionel’s death.

Family background and early life

Lionel Bull Ingram was born in Barking, Essex in the summer of 1822, and baptised at St Margaret of Antioch Church on 28 July 1822. He was the third child of eight born to William Ingram (1794–1853) and his wife, Mary Ann née Crane (c.1795–1845).

At the time of Lionel’s birth, William Ingram was a baker. He married Mary Ann Crane at St Leonard’s Church, Shoreditch on 29 August 1813. The couple had eight children, although three died as children and another died aged 21, leaving only Lionel and three brothers to survive into adulthood.

William Ingram continued to trade as a baker until about 1838, when the trade passed to his eldest son, also William, while William and Mary, together with their family took a lease on Clayhall Farm in Barkingside. At the first national census in June 1841, William and Mary Ingram were living at Clayhall with two sons – Lionel (aged 18) and George (aged 9) – and a 20-year old servant, Eliza Stringer. The other two sons, William (aged 21) and Charles (aged 15) were working as bakers at Prospect House in Barking.

It is not known where Lionel was educated but, at the 1841 census, his younger brother Alfred (aged 13) was at the Bell House Academy, run by George Palmer, at Theydon Garnon near Epping, so it is possible that the other sons were also educated there.

Marriage and children

On 19 June 1842, 19-year old Lionel Bull Ingram married Caroline Davey, at St Margaret of Antioch Church, Barking. She was the daughter of George and Sarah Davey – George Davey was the publican at the Beehive Inn in Barkingside, a short distance from Clayhall.

Caroline had a son, William, born in October 1841; the child was registered as William Davey, but on his baptism on 14 August 1844, at Holy Trinity Church, Barkingside, Lionel was recorded as the father.

On the marriage register, Lionel’s occupation was recorded as “farmer”, but soon afterwards, he became the licensee of the Maypole in Barkingside.

After the couple were married, they had 14 more children:

George Henry: born 3 December 1842, baptised 1 January 1843

Mary Ann: born 20 July 1842, baptised 14 August 1844

Alfred James: born 14 November 1845, baptised 17 December 1845

Lionel Bull: born 3 November 1846, baptised 2 December 1846

Charles: born 5 March 1848, baptised 29 March 1848

Sarah Harriet: born 23 May 1849, baptised 13 June 1849

Henry: born 4 July 1850, baptised 31 July 1850

Emma: born 27 January 1852, baptised 17 March 1852

Caroline: born 31 March 1853, baptised 27 April 1853

Arthur: born 21 April 1854, baptised 17 May 1854

Edith: born 30 August 1855, baptised 19 September 1855

James: born 10 February 1858, baptised 17 March 1858

Amelia: born 20 December 1859, baptised 25 January 1860

Edgar Frederick: born 8 January 1866, baptised 7 February 1866

All the children were baptised at The Church of the Holy Trinity, which had been consecrated in July 1840.

Sadly, two of the daughters died as infants: Sarah Harriet was buried at Holy Trinity on 20 August 1849, at just 3 months old, while Emma had only lived for just 15 months, when she was buried on 28 April 1853.

Hedgeman’s Farm

In about 1850, Lionel had left the Maypole Inn and returned to his previous career as a farmer, taking a lease on the farm adjacent to Clayhall, known as Hedgeman’s. The farm was to remain with the family until the death of his son, James in 1924.

At the census in March 1851, Lionel and Caroline were recorded at Hedgeman’s with five sons, and two domestic servants. On the census, Lionel was described as a farmer with 170 acres employing 10 men.

Lionel continued at Hedgeman’s with his growing family, until his death in November 1875. At the 10-yearly censuses the size of the farm grew: in 1861, it was recorded as 270 acres employing 14 men & 6 boys, and ten years later as 376 acres employing 24 men, 11 women & 7 boys.

During Lionel’s time at Hedgeman’s, the farm was frequently the subject of arson attacks. In January 1861, the owners of the estate, the trustees of the late Revd. John Monins, from Deal in Kent, placed advertisements in the local newspapers offering a reward of £300 (the equivalent of £47,500 in 2025) for information about a suspected arson attack on a haystack at the farm.

On 30 March 1862, there was another fire which destroyed a stack of oats valued at £100. John Welsh, an ex-employee of Lionel Ingram was seen behaving suspiciously near the fire; when he was spoken to by a police officer, he said “I suppose the cost of this [the fire engine] will fall on Mr. Ingram.” When the superintendent of the fire brigade asked Welsh to assist him, Welsh responded: “No, I shall not. Let it burn.”

When Lionel Ingram junior said to Welsh that he would like to know who set the fire, Welsh replied: “Yes, you are like a good many more, but you will not; and if I say one word about it, you will make ten of it.”

“You may depend on it; the one who has done this has done them all. But he is not dead yet. All I can say of the fire is, it wants some coals to make it burn well.”

At the trial at the Essex Assizes in Chelmsford in July, the judge (the Honourable Sir S Martin) said that although it was a case of great suspicion, there was no evidence that Welsh had set the fire, and he ordered the jury to return a Not Guilty verdict. Welsh was discharged with a caution.

In October 1864, another fire broke out in a corn stack, requiring the attention of five fire engines. The fire brigade was unable to save the stack due to lack of water, so the fire was allowed to burn itself out. The report in the Essex Standard of 12 October 1864 said: “This makes the fifth loss that Mr Ingram has sustained from fire, being in successive years; that of last year nearly causing the death of his wife through fright. The stack contained over sixty quarters of excellent white wheat, the product of eleven acres and was valued at over £200.”

In October 1867, a young employee of the farm named Shilleto, was minding a horse driven chaff-cutter when he “carelessly placed his left hand on the cog wheel; the result was that his hand was so fearfully mutilated that he had to be at once conveyed to the London Hospital, where it was deemed necessary to amputate three of his fingers, so that now he has only the thumb and the forefinger on his hand. The boy is progressing favourably.”

In April 1870, John St Piere and his son Richard were charged with stealing a sheep, valued at £2, from the farm. Charles Ingram had found the skin and entrails of the sheep in a field at the farm, and reported the killing to the police. PC Villers visited the nearby Red House pub where he found John St Piere “very drunk and creating a disturbance”. On investigating further, PC Villers traced footprints from the field where the sheep was found leading directly to a shed belonging to the two suspects. Inside, he found the father mending his trousers which were stained with blood and sheep’s manure. At the Petty Sessions in May, both men (who had previous convictions) were sentenced to 12 months imprisonment with hard labour.

In July 1873, Mary Donovan and Mary Sheen (both aged 50) were charged with stealing 2lb of beef steak, a loaf and six rolls valued at 3s from Lionel Ingram. At the trial before the Ilford magistrates on 2 August, Lionel said that he had returned from Romford with some shopping and noticed the two women in his yard. He went into the house and left the parcels in the kitchen. Returning to the kitchen a few minutes later, he saw Mary Donovan in the kitchen and chased her away. He then realised that the parcels of food had gone. He traced the women to the Beehive Inn, where he found them eating the rolls. Mary Donovan was sentenced to one month’s hard labour, while Mary Sheen was acquitted.

Death

Lionel died at Hedgeman’s on 20 November 1875, aged 53, and was buried at Holy Trinity on 29 November.

The report of his death in the Essex Times said that he was “deeply lamented by a large family and wide circle of friends”.

Shortly after the funeral, on 24 December, the Essex Weekly News reported the theft from the farm of “a valuable horse”. According to the newspaper report, the horse had been “depastured in a meadow near the house” and the was discovered missing the next morning. The thieves had driven the animal into a far corner of the meadow. As “there was no bar nor bolt on the meadow gate … the thieves had not a difficult task” to take the horse away.

Subsequent family history

Lionel’s widow, Caroline, survived her husband by nearly 25 years and died on 10 August 1910, aged 87, and was buried alongside him at Holy Trinity.

William Ingram married Theresa Shepherd in January 1864; the couple had six children. William worked as a carpenter. He died in Ilford in February 1911, aged 69.

George Henry Ingram married Barbara Black in March 1866 and had three children. He was a baker by profession. He died in Ilford in September 1905, aged 62.

Mary Ann Ingram married James Lamb, from nearby Clayhall Farm, in February 1866; the couple had four children. She lived with James at Clayhall Farm until he died in 1903, following which she continued to live in Ilford until her death in March 1929.

Alfred James Ingram married Sarah Jane Dunne in June 1868; the couple had 14 children. Like his elder brother, William, Alfred worked as a carpenter. He died in Wimbledon in November 1917.

Lionel Bull Ingram married Elizabeth Bull in July 1869; the couple had two children before Elizabeth died in late 1875, aged only 25. Lionel remarried, to Fanny Sarah Black, in February 1876, but had no further children. After working on the family farm, he became a self-employed potato salesman until his death in Whitechapel in March 1893.

Charles Ingram worked on the family farm at least until his marriage to Elizabeth Ann Bayliss in February 1872 and the birth of their four children. After 1880, he disappears from the records until his death in Sydney, New South Wales in August 1914.

At the time of his marriage to Mary Rose Gartley in May 1874, Henry Ingram was a licensed victualler; the couple had two daughters. After 1881, the family cannot be found on any records until the death of Henry in Sydney, New South Wales in August 1932. It is possible that he and his brother, Charles, had travelled to Australia together in the 1880s, possibly with their two sisters, Edith and Amelia (see below).

Caroline Ingram married Joseph Henry Johnson in October 1873. Joseph was a farmer with 150 acres at Lambourne, about five miles from Hedgeman’s. He died in the winter of 1886, aged only 31, leaving Caroline a widow at 32 with eight children. She continued to live in the Barkingside area and survived her husband by 52 years, dying in 1938.

Arthur Ingram married Martha Rosina Kirk in October 1875, with whom he had five children. At the 1891 census, he and Martha were living at Salisbury Cottages, Roden Street, Ilford with two children; Arthur’s occupation was recorded as “butcher”. Ten years later, they were still at the same address although Arthur is now recorded as a “newsagent”. After this, Arthur cannot be traced on the records, although in 1911 Martha was still living at Salisbury Cottages, now trading as a “Newsagent & General Store”. Martha died in Ilford in early 1942.

Edith Ingram married George Ford Smith, a grocer, in March 1879 and had three children born in England. In about 1883, the family emigrated to Australia, settling in Sydney, New South Wales, where they had a further five children. George died in Petersham (a suburb of Sydney) in January 1915; Edith died at nearby Ashfield in November 1935.

James Ingram married Anie Clark Bosworth in June 1877, and had eight children. In the early years of their marriage, the couple lived at Dunsprings Farm, near Hedgeman’s, but by 1891 James had taken over the lease of Hedgeman’s from his mother, where he remained until his death in April 1924, after when the farm was sold off for housing.

Amelia Ingram married Frederick Newman Swift, a stockbrokers’ clerk (the brother of George Ford Smith) in May 1881. The couple had two children, before emigrating with Edith and George to Australia in 1883. Six further children were born in New South Wales, before the family moved to Victoria in about 1896, where they had three more children. Frederick died in Melbourne in September 1919; Amelia died at Williamstown, Melbourne in February 1932.

Edgar Frederick Ingram was working as a baker/confectioner when he married Annie Godson in March 1888. Sadly, he died, aged only 23, in Chelsea in October 1889. Annie remarried in January 1892 to her nephew Lionel Bull Ingram, the son of Edgar’s elder brother, Lionel, and had five children.

Sources

Ancestry.co.uk:

1841 England Census

1851 England Census

1861 England Census

1871 England Census

1881 England Census

1891 England Census

1901 England Census

England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1966, 1973-1995

Essex, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812

Essex, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1918