Family of John Hill and Elizabeth Hannah Bennett

Husband: John Hill

Wife: Elizabeth Hannah Bennett

Note on Husband: John Hill

According to (probable) marriage certificate: Was already widower by time he married Elizabeth Anna Bennett, and was at that time a railway labourer. Date/place/names all correct for this certificate (except that Elizabeth is 21 instead of 23).

On Thomas Teevan's birth certificate (1882), it says that his mother Elizabeth Hannah Bennett was the widow of John Hill, coal miner, who died in Durham, England "about 14 years ago".

However, there is only one John Hill who died at the right time in the right place - and he was 52 at death. An Elizabeth Hill was present at the death; and he was formerly a stage carrier. It looks as though this could be the death of his father (though the occupation is 50/50) - but his own death record (at the same place) hasn't yet been found.

A probable truth is that John Hill died in 1879 - I have ordered a certificate for that year in Durham. Should that prove to be him, it would explain why Elizabeth and James' children were discovered to be illigitimate in 1879 and not before.

Note on Wife: Elizabeth Hannah Bennett

Elizabeth Hannah Bennett came from an apparently wealthy and long lineage which can be traced back to the year 1600 in Devon, England.

Although with such a common name it is hard to be certain, the probable entry in the 1861 census shows her as working as a servant.

She married John Hill in England and had no known children before he died. At some point she met James Teevan and ended up living in Scotland with him. My theory is that James met her while visiting his brother John who was stationed in England at around that time. This seems more likely than an initial meeting in Scotland, as Elizabeth would have had no obvious reason for moving away from Devon unless it was to go with James.

Yet they never married in the normal sense. The birth certificates of their first children show that they were illegitimate and no marriage can be found in any of the Scottish or English records. Theirs must have been a common law marriage, ie one recognised as legal due to living as man and wife and recognised as such by all who knew them. They did list themselves as married on the Scottish census returns and even on some of the later children's birth certificates, where they even gave a fictitious place and date of their marriage as Sunderland, England on 23/05/1864 or 1869. This was definately not a real date since their previous spouses were still alive and there were no James Teevan's married in England at all between 1868 and 1871.

So Elizabeth's story is apparently a Jane Austen-style romance. Being married at 19 and widowed in her 20s, she met another man who being poor, would have been a disgrace for her to marry - in those days, women would be disowned from their families and friends for marrying a lower class man. Yet she ran away with him to Scotland where she had his children and lived out the rest of her life.

And to add another twist to the tale - in the 1901 census Elizabeth was living with two of her grown-up children, Thomas and Grace, at 54 Brandon Street, Hamilton under the name Grace. She worked as a dressmaker from home, in a home with only one windowed room.

Meanwhile James stayed with his son William (our 'pop'). James died at his son's address later that year so it could be supposed that he was simply staying with his son in his last few months. However this doesn't make sense since William was not the eldest son and had a wife and infant of his own at the time. Also, in the 1901 census Elizabeth listed herself as married but James called himself a widower - true given his real marital status but surprising given the fact that they'd called themselves married for the previous 20 years and even made up a date and place of the fictinal wedding to put in their childrens' birth certificates! Perhaps they were seperated at the time and Elizabeth was trying to cling onto the marriage that James had given up on?