STEVENS, Ezekiel (Grimwade p.335,353)

[MCB]

As a watch motion maker from St James, Clerkenwell he paid duties for the apprentice indentures of Jno Tomkins and William Leech in 1785 and 1794 respectively.
He was assessed to Land Tax on property in St James’ Buildings, Clerkenwell from 1790-1799.
He entered a maker’s mark at Goldsmiths Hall in 1798 as a watch case maker from Falcon Place, Bay Street Clerkenwell.
In 1806 Ezekiel Stevens paid duties for the apprentice indentures of George Moore and is listed in the 1811 London Directory as a watch maker at 11 Burdett’s Buildings, Hoxton.
No further information has been found for him.
Further information for the name Ezekiel Stevens has however been found but relates to a different person.
As a bachelor he married Elizabeth Catherine Tanner at St Botolph, Aldgate in 1811; both were from that parish.This information is included on the grounds that Grimwade speculates that the Ezekiel Stevens who entered the marks at Goldsmiths Hall from 17 Percival Street in partnership with William John Hammon and alone in 1819 may have been the son of the earlier Ezekiel. No link between the two has however been established.
The christening record in 1812 of their son Luke Stephen at St Leonard, Shoreditch shows an address at Union Street. The son’s burial aged 2 years, late of Islington Common, was recorded at St Mary, Islington in 1814.
The 1841 UK Census for King Street Terrace, Islington records Ezekiel as a watch maker aged 50 years living with his wife Elizabeth and three children aged between 10 and 20 years for whom no christening records have been found to show where the family lived in the period from 1814-1841.
The burial of the second Ezekiel aged around 58 years, late of Oxford Street, Islington, was recorded in 1846 at the New Bunhill Fields Burial Ground.
His wife Elizabeth Catherine was granted the administration of his estate in 1848 by the Consistory Court of London but failed to act on her authority and it was left to their daughter Eliza to obtain authority in 1881 from the Principal Registry to act as administratrix. The value of the estate was £450.