BARLOW, John Hawkins (Grimwade p.430)

[MCB]

He was recorded in the 1841 UK Census aged 60 years as a jeweller and lodger at James Street, St Marylebone.
His burial in 1853 aged 73, late of 20 Pickering Square, Paddington, was recorded at All Souls, Kensal Green.

[Hawkins descendant]

John Hawkins Barlow

I have very recently come to this forum through Family History. John Hawkins Barlow was my 4x great grandfather.

I see from the forum that Grimwade (p430) identifies “probably” John Hawkins Barlow with the John Barlow, son of John Barlow of Great Yarmouth, whom Thomas Satchwell took as apprentice in 1792. My own research had identified John Hawkins Barlow as the son of William Barlow of Bungay, Suffolk and Elizabeth Hawkins of Barking, near Needham Market, Suffolk, who were married on 12th April 1770 and lived in Stowmarket. This was based on his birthplace in the 1851 census being given as Stowmarket (Which the enumerator had wrongly classified as in Bucks!), and the parish records for Stowmarket listing his baptism (with both forenames) on 2nd April 1780.

I also exchanged emails with Goldsmiths Hall where I learned of the 1792 indenture. I wondered for a time if the two Johns were the same person. Elizabeth had died when JHB was five years old and I knew only that William had outlived her.
If he, too, had died, JHB would have been an orphan. Yarmouth is not so far from Bungay and possibly John (Snr.) of Yarmouth was a relative who became JHB’s step-father. I was advised that John (Jnr.) was apprenticed as a jeweller, as was his own apprentice, Joseph Watkins Oliver, but that when JHB registered his mark it was as a plateworker. This tended to support the view that there were two Johns. I was finally able to confirm their separate identities by comparing JHB’s signature on the record of his marriage with John of Yarmouth’s signature on his indenture. The two signatures are very different. It follows from this that JHB was not Thomas Satchwell's apprentice.

JHB was sixth of seven children of William and Elizabeth whose baptisms I have found at Stowmarket. Of interest is Thomas, the third, who went on to become a solicitor, suggesting that William and Elizabeth were people of some status.

JHB filed a patent in 1816. This was for a combination table and urn for hot drinks. The urn was designed to have separate compartments, each with its own tap and heater, so that several different hot drinks might be dispensed. This was mounted to the pedestal of a table. The table top (the tea-board) was mounted between urn and pedestal and allowed to rotate relative to both. Thus a cup could be positioned under the required tap, filled, and then the tea-board rotated to the appropriate person. This would be repeated until all one’s guests had been served.

In Ames “Cottage comforts etc.” (New York 1838) we are told “Hatching eggs by steam has been for some years successfully practised by Mr. J. H. Barlow, jeweller of Lamb’s Conduit-Street, London". It seems he was exhibiting the apparatus for a fee.

Quite a few examples of his advertising can be found on the internet. At the Victoria and Albert Museum there is a 1669 portrait miniature received in 1869, where the frame is packed out with JHB’s trade card. “J.H.Barlow/ Manufacturer in Gold & Silver / ... Pearlworker & ... / No. 1 Grange Court, Carey Street / Lincoln's Inn Fields/ Mourning rings and brooches / of every description at the shortest notice. Plate and plated goods, cutlery, clocks & / watches, furnished on commission / being a saving of 10 to 20 per cent / Diamonds and Pearls / bought, sold and re-set / Pearl paste for cleaning and preserving pearls in their natural colour / J. Bateman sc. Above, the arms of the Goldsmiths' Company. Alas, the card cannot now be viewed.

JHB seems not to have traded very successfully. He appears frequently in the London Gazette. In 1804 he is in the Fleet Prison and in 1818 in the King’s Bench Prison. Bankruptcy papers in the National Archives record a bankruptcy of 1811 from which JHB was finally released in 1840 with the return to him of surplus funds totalling £5-18-2d.

He has been recorded at various addresses:
1802 record of poll: Carey Street, Jeweller;
1804 London Gazette: late of Carey Street, last of George Street, Adelphi;
1806 record of poll: Grange Court, Diamond Merchant;
1811 London Gazette: Grange Court, Carey Street, pearl stringer;
1814 PO directory: 1, Grange Court, Carey Street, Goldsmith, Jeweller, Pearl Worker and Stringer;
1816 Patent notice: Leicester Place, Leicester Square;
1818 London Gazette: late of Vere Street, Oxford Street, Jeweller and Goldsmith;
1838 Ames (above): Lamb’s Conduit Street. Jeweller;
1837, 1838,1840 Bankrupcy proceedings: Grange Court, Carey Street, Pearl Stringer & Jeweller;
1841 Census: James Street, Marylebone, Jeweller;
1851 Census: Hampden Street, Paddington, Jeweller;
1853 Death, 20 Pickering Terrace, Paddington. He was buried in a public grave.

John Hawkins Barlow married twice: Sarah Allen 7th July 1800, at Holy Trinty Clapham where his brother Thomas married in 1796) and Hannah or Harriet Matilda Keely, 20th May 1819 at St. George, Southwark. Although only one baptism has been found, five children have been identified from other records and there is a possible sixth.

I have included most that I know about JHB’s origins and trading in these notes, but not elaborated on his wider family. I am willing to go into more details on children and siblings if anyone wishes.

If there are examples of his work out there it would be very interesting to see an image posted onto the forum.

My thanks to MCB for information on Grimwade.

[burnisherboy]

Thanks so much for a most informative post concerning your ancestor. A large advert placed by him in the Morning Post of the 18th November 1815 is of great interest in detailing at great length his prices for both Sheffield and soldered plate. John Hawkins Barlow registration of a mark, move to retailing plate and entering a patent related to the trade in 1816 suggests a major but perhaps temporary change of direction for him. Thank you also for elucidating the function of a "Tea Board". Burnisherboy

[silverly]

March 3, 1803 the burial of a John Hawkins Barlow of St Pancras, Middlesex is recorded at St Andrew, Holborn, Camden.

[Hawkins descendant]

Thanks. This church is not too far from Carey Street. I assume this is a child of John Hawkins Barlow and Sarah Allen. I have been unable to locate any baptisms for JHB's children, so I cannot be sure. One possibility is that the records are lost, but JHB's daughter Virginia lived with a man who was a donor to the London Missionary Society. This society was started by Congregationalists. Perhaps, only perhaps, JHB had become a congregationalist. He would have had to marry in an Anglican church as in 1800 in England, except for Jews and Quakers, it was the only place for a legal marriage to be performed. Although there were non-conformist burial grounds in London, non-conformists also used chuchyards.

[dognose]

J.H. Barlow - London - 1814



J.H. Barlow - London - 1814

[Hawkins descendant]

Thanks for posting this. 2 more copies for the family history file! John Hawkins Barlow had a tentative link to India (but not, as far as I know to Ceylon or Persia) in that two of his daughters became successive mistresses of John Teil. John Teil (born 1790 in Wiltshire) went to India as a soldier about 1817 but soon left the army and became involved with a tannery in Calcutta which he later came to own. Nothing in John Teil's history that I have found so far suggests an interest in pearls and I don't know when he first became involved with John Hawkins Barlow's family, so it is impossible to do more than speculate that John Hawkins Barlow got his pearls with John Teil's help. On balance, I think it more likely that he didn't, but one never knows.

[dognose]

PRISONERS IN HIS MAJESTY'S PRISON OF THE FLEET

Second Notice

John Hawkins Barlow, late of Carey Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, and last of George Street, Adelphi, both in the County of Middlesex, Goldsmith and Jeweller.

Source: The London Gazette - 7th-11th August 1804

[silverly]

21 October 1844 Andrew Cross Oram Widower and Boot Maker of 29 4th North Street and Georgiana Elizabeth Hawkins Barlow Spinster of 3 Paul Street both of full age marriage solemnized at Christchurch in the Parish of Saint Marylebone in the County of Middlesex. Georgiana's father John Hawkins Barlow Jeweller.

[dognose]

NEW PATENTS

John Hawkins Barlow, of Leicester-place, Leicester-square, goldsmith and jeweller; for certain improvements on tea-urns, tea- pots, tea-boards, or tea-trays. June 27, 1816.

Source: Annals of Philosophy - February 1817