Might my great-great-grandfather be politician Sir Francis Burdett?

QMy earliest memories of family history include being told that my great-great-grandfather, Francis Mills (1843-1908) was the illegitimate son of Sir Francis Burdett. The story was often repeated at family events that he did little work and collected an allowance from the cashiers of Coutts & Co at 440 Strand, London. This meant that his son, Francis Burdett Mills (1875-1951) had enough money to start and run his own dairy in Wandsworth, which he eventually sold to United Dairies in 1924. This story is commonplace in the families of the offspring of Francis Burdett Mills.

I took little real interest in genealogy until my father died in 2010, when I was handed a box of old photographs by my mother when clearing out his things. Starting in earnest in 2013 and when work allowed, I have managed to trace back to all my 3 x greatgrandparents, with the exception of the parents of Francis Mills, with a high degree of certainty.

WHAT I DO KNOW ABOUT FRANCIS?

Of Francis, the earliest confirmed record I have of him is in the 1871 census. He was 28 years old and living at 11 Tottenham Street, St Pancras (Somers Town) – hardly the address of someone with any money – with his wife Maria (née Barry), daughters Clara and Emily and three lodgers. He was said to have been born in Marylebone and his occupation was given as Brass Worker.

The closest that I and my distant cousins, who in many cases have been attempting to trace the Mills family line for longer than I, have in ascertaining records before 1871 is a birth of a Francis Mills in Marylebone on 4 April 1843 to a John and Mary Ann Mills (née Powell).

The 1851 census has a probable entry for Francis, living at 1A Cleveland Street, Marylebone, with his mother, Mary Ann (originally from Montgomeryshire), a widow and older sisters Emily and Jane. 1A Cleveland Street was a multiple families’ dwelling. I have been unable to identify anything of substance for Mary Ann, Emily or Jane after this date or of what happened to John.

WHEN DID THE BURDETT NAME ENTER THE FAMILY?

Francis Mills appears to have ‘adopted’ the Burdett forename himself sometime during the late 1860s/early 1870s, using it to name his first son in 1875. The name was used in subsequent generations for the first named son or a reserve. His wife Maria Barry grew up in Exeter Street, just off the Strand.

WHAT IS KNOWN ABOUT SIR FRANCIS BURDETT?

As Sir Francis Burdett (the 6th baronet) died in January 1844 at the age of 73 and was devoted to his wife, who pre-deceased him by a few days, I’m doubtful he fathered an illegitimate child 18 months earlier. There are no obvious records of a Francis Mills receiving an allowance in either the Burdett or Coutts archives.

WHAT LIGHT DOES DNA SHED?

Although I’ve found nothing to substantiate a ‘Burdett illegitimacy’ (through autosomal DNA test results and my Y-DNA ones), equally I’ve been unable to disprove it by determining through documentation who Francis Mills’s parents were and then seeking to verify via DNA matching.

Whereas I like the idea of having one of the great radical politicians of the 19th century as a distant ancestor, I’m just as keen to determine a Welsh heritage in my family tree. What more can I do to further my investigations?

Nick Mills

AIt does indeed seem unlikely that 73-year-old Sir Francis Burdett would father an illegitimate child, especially as he was apparently devoted to his wife. Family stories, though, usually seem to have at least a grain of truth so are always worth pursuing.

ESTABLISHING THE KNOWN FACTS

Your 2x great-gandfather’s marriage certificate gives his father as John Mills, Brass Founder, so it looks as though that birth certificate you have is the correct one. This is followed by a baptism on 30 April 1843 for Francis Mills with parents John Mills, Brass Founder, and Mary and this also confirms the birth date.

FOLLOWING THE PAPERTRAIL

1841 CENSUS:

Wondering whether further information about the family might throw some light on the problem I found the family in 1841, misindexed as Miles. In Clare Court were John Mills, 44, Brass Founder, not born in county, with Mary, 30, not born in county, and Maria, 14, Amelia,12, Ellen, 8, Mary Ann, 4, and Emily, 2, all born in county. Baptisms can be found for all the girls with Maria baptised as Rebecca Maria. The 1841 Ellen should, I think, be Emma, who was baptised in 1833 with Amelia. All have the correct parents and father’s occupation.

1851 CENSUS:

By 1851 John appears to have died with Mary recorded as widowed and there are three children, Emily, 23, Jane, 10, and Francis, 8. I suspect that the 23-year-old Emily is actually Amelia. Mary was illiterate so the enumerator will have written down what he thought he heard.

SEEKING BIRTHS & MARRIAGES:

I haven’t found a birth registration or baptism for Jane although both can be found for Emily in 1839 and Francis in 1843. Likewise, I haven’t found any evidence of a marriage for a John Mills to a Mary (Ann) Powell at any point, despite a wide-ranging search.

Given Mary’s widowhood in 1851 I looked for a second marriage but the name is a common one. I then tried to find a likely marriage or death for the girls and found a possible marriage for the 1839 Emily. In 1857 in St Pancras an Emily Mills, a minor, married James Adam Boyd. Emily, born in 1839, would be a minor in 1857 and her father is given as John Mills though his occupation is simply given as ‘Dead’. One of the witnesses, however, was a Mary Ann Freelove. Wondering if this could be her mother under a second married surname I searched for a marriage for a Mary Ann Mills to a man with the surname Freelove with no result.

A search for Francis Mills in 1861 was also unsuccessful but on the grounds that he must be there somewhere I tried a search with just the first name Francis, year of birth 1843 +/-1 and born in either Middlesex or London. A trawl through the resulting surnames threw up a Francis Freelove, the same unusual surname as for the witness, Mary Ann Freelove, on Emily’s marriage certificate.

1861 CENSUS:

At 10 Grosvenor Mews in 1861 are Mary Ann Freelove, aged 53, a laundress born in North Wales, all correct, and eighteen-year-old

Francis Freelove, Tinman at a Foundry and born St George, Hanover Square. A further search found a marriage on 11 August 1856 for Mary Ann Powell, full age, spinster, with father Edward Powell, Sawyer, to Charles John Thomas Freelove, a widower, in St George, Bloomsbury. Charles seems to have died within a matter of weeks as a death is registered in the December quarter of 1856 in Pancras district and I think Mary died in 1865. The use of her maiden name and ‘spinster’ perhaps explains why there is no sign of a marriage to John Mills!

CONCLUSIONS THUS FAR, AND OTHER OPTIONS TO CONSIDER

None of this suggests that Francis is anything but the son of John and Mary Mills and you haven’t found any evidence from Coutts Bank or in the Burdett archives. Nevertheless, the story seems to be well-entrenched in the family so other options should be considered:

• Could the apparently undocumented Jane, born around 1841, be the child in question, with Francis perhaps deciding to take advantage of the Burdett surname? This seems unlikely. Jane fits between Emily and Francis and the same argument about Sir Francis Burdett’s age would apply.

• Sir Francis had a son, Robert, born in 1796 who died unmarried in 1880. Could he be the father? Francis would still be able to claim descent from Sir Francis and the family story might have been distorted?

• Sir Francis Burdett’s mother was Eleanor Jones, a very Welsh

surname. Could this be a connection to Mary Ann Powell?

REFLECTING...

• How this story begin?

• What did your 2xgreat grandfather actually say?

• Did he clearly tell his children ‘I am the illegitimate son of Sir Francis Burdett’.

• Or might he have said ‘My father said that he was the illegitimate son of Sir Francis Burdett’?

Remember that your 2x great-grandfather was very young when his father died so he would probably have heard the story secondhand. Also the phrase ‘my father said’ will have been repeated down the generations as the story was passed on, possibly becoming misrepresented. While the 73-year-old Sir Francis is unlikely to have fathered a child in 1843, there is a well-documented tale that as a young man ‘he was for a long time the notorious lover of Lady Oxford’ even, it seems after both were married. Could John Mills, the father of Francis, have been a result of this and has the family story slipped a generation?

There are several avenues to follow. ME