A Random Act of Kindness

It was old and battered and forlorn and its spine was falling apart. A bit like the writer, really. But there the resemblance ends, because this was—a Family Bible published in 1776.

None of us knew that we had a Family Bible, let alone one over two hundred years old that included some family names with their dates of birth written into the initial pages. When my eldest sister found it while rummaging through some old boxes she was as excited as I was. Her immediate kind reaction was to tell me, as the family historian, and to send me scans of the inscriptions inside the Bible, with the book itself following in the post.

The Inscriptions

So what was written on those fly pages?

Well, the most impressive inscription was a manuscript dedication in the most beautiful calligraphy. It immediately reminded me of another example of similarly beautiful hand-writing in the family, although that was of a rather later date and from another branch—the BISHOPPs.

The dedication reads:

Richard Osmond

The Gift of his Uncle

GEORGE GODDARD

And who was Richard OSMOND? Well, if his uncle was George GODDARD, then presumably his mother was also a GODDARD. As it happens I have a Richard OSMOND, 1804 - 1878, whose parents were John OSMOND and Mary (also referred to as Molly) GODDARD. Bingo! That makes him my great great grandfather and George is (to me) a new member of the family.

The next two pages have a list of the children of Richard OSMOND and Ann For some reason the left-hand page has a copy of the names on the right, with a couple of additions. No, I don't know why, either.

Left-hand page	Right-hand page
Richard Osmond Born Decr 29th 1804 Ann Osmond Born July 3rd 1803	Richard Osmond born Decr 29th... Ann Osmond Born July 3 18...
Children of the Above	Children of the Above when Born
Edmund Osmond Born Novr 16th 1827 Alfred Osmond Do. Feby 26 1829 Do Do Died May 15 1831 Sarah Osmond Born Novr 26 1830 Mary Osmond Do Novr 2 1832 Do Do Died Novr 23 1837 Emma Osmond born March 7 1836 Elizabeth Osmond Born Novr 25 1837	Edmund Osmond Born Novr 16th 1827 Alfred Osmond Do. Feby 26 1829 Do Do Died May 15 1831 Sarah Osmond Born Novr 26th 1830 Mary Osmond Do Novr 2 - 1832 Do Died Novr 23 - 1837 Emma Osmond Do March 7 - 188... Elizabeth Osmond Born Novr 25 - 18... Maria Osmond Do Jan 7 - 18... William Osmond Do Sept 2 - 18... Do Do Died Novr 26 18...

Let's have a look at those two parents.

Richard OSMOND

Richard OSMOND's date of birth is given in the Family Bible as December 29th, 1804. This ties in nicely with the date I already have from the record in the Hurstbourne Tarrant parish registers (now kept at the Hampshire County Record Office) which records his baptism on 30 January 1805 and where he is described as 'Richard Osmond sn of John and Mary bn 29 Dec last'.

He was described as a butcher:

• At the time of his sons Edmund and Alfred's baptisms in 1827 and 1829 respectively in the St Mary Reading parish records,
• In the 1851 census when he was living at 58 Hurstbourne Street, Hurstbourne Tarrant along with Ann and his children Edmund, Ann and Maria,
• At his son Edmund's wedding in 1854,
• In the 1861 census also at Hurstbourne Street with Ann, his children Ann and Elizabeth, and his grandson John Hooper OSMOND, and
• In the 1871 census, by now at Sheepward Street, Hurstbourne Tarrant.

Was this his marriage?

So when did he marry, and what was Ann's maiden name? The only record I could find of a Richard OSMOND marrying an Ann in the period 1822 - 1832 was on 21 August 1827 at St George's, Hanover Square where he was named as 'Richard Osmond, a bachelor of this parish' and she was named as 'Ann Pullin, a spinster of the parish of Caversham in the County of Oxford'. Could this be the right couple? If so, then they were a long way from home, though that might have been explained by the four months between their marriage and the birth of their first child.

Bishop's Transcript of Marriage of Richard Osmond and Ann Pullin,
21 Aug 1827, St George Hanover Square, Westminster

Then I found a record on the FamilySearch web site of the death their daughter Sarah [Osmond] ROMBALD [sic] on 22 March 1932 in Chatsworth, Livingston, Illinois, USA. Bingo! again. Imagine my surprise and delight when I saw that her parents were named there as 'Richard Osmond' and 'Ann Pullen' [sic]. So the St George's, Hanover Square marriage indeed appears to be the likely one. This just goes to show the importance of researching collateral lines as well as the main line.

I will be posting more details of Sarah and her marriage and emigration to the United States here soon.

In Remembrance

He and Ann, as well as three of their children, are remembered on a headstone in Hurstbourne Tarrant which reads:

In Loving Memory of
Ann Osmond wife of Richard
born 1806 died 1869
and Alfred died 1831 aged 2 years and 3 months May 20th 1831
Mary died 1837 aged 3 years Nov 28th 1837
and William died 1841

On the kerbing at the bottom:

Richard Osmond died March 22nd 1878 aged 73 yrs

The dates of death for Alfred and Mary differ slightly from those in the Bible; perhaps those on the grave refer to their burials.

Reading Mercury - Saturday 30 March 1878

Ann

As for Ann, her date of birth is given as July 3, 1805. Again, this ties in nicely with the approximate date that I already had from the 1851 census of about 1804 at Kintbury in Berkshire.  The Family Bible now gives us an exact date.

Reading Mercury - Saturday 23 January 1869

The Children

They all have their own stories; I will tell what I know of their stories in a later post here.

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So thank you, sister, for this contribution of yours to the family records!

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

AESOP, The Lion and the Mouse

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