Emily Beckwith's Bible

Well it's not been a great year, but I have managed to complete six out of the seven remaining Units I need to complete my Diploma of Family History and I'm looking forward to having more time to spend on my blog. This post is from an assessment for one of the most recent Units "Place, Image, Object", part of which involved identification of inherited objects and placing them in context. I looked at the bible which originally belonged to my great-grandmother, Emily Beckwith.

The oldest item handed down my family line is Emily Beckwith’s Bible, Emily being my great-grandmother. It is an octavo-sized book (155 x 97 x 28 mm external size) with cloth-covered board covers. After binding, the front and back covers were lacquered and embossed with the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) logo on a leather-look background. The bible was published for the BFBS in 1890 by the Oxford University Press (see Figure 1). Apart from browning of the pages (ageing) and damage to the binding, the book is mainly in good condition and does not look heavily read.

Figure 1 : Emily Beckwith's Bible: front cover, impression of cloth, title page. (Photographs by the author.)

There are several annotations on the endpapers and flysheets of the Bible. The name “Emily Beckwith” and an address in Brick Lane is written on the front endpaper in pencil and pothook-style writing. The name “Emily Beckwith” and the address “4 Finnis Street” is written inside the front flyleaf in ink and strong cursive writing. A similar hand lists the names and birth dates of Emily and her siblings on the back flyleaves. A slightly different hand adds Joseph Charles Stevens initially in pencil then inked over plus Mary Ann Butler and Zachariah Beckwith (her parents) in ink.

Emily Beckwith’s marriage and the birth of her daughter were added to the front endpaper in the handwriting of my mother, Patricia née Spall. My mother also annotated the entries for Mary Ann Butler and Zachariah Beckwith on the back flyleaf (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: Annotations in the Bible. (Photographs by the author.)

Formed on 7th March 1804, the BFBS was founded “to make the Scriptures cheap and plentiful”, circulating “one Book without note or comment”.¹ It provided translations of the King James Bible to missionary societies and English and Welsh versions for distribution to children via Sunday schools. For many children from poverty-stricken families this would have been the only book they ever owned and for many something to be treasured. The low-cost, hard-wearing construction of Emily Beckwith’s Bible was well suited to the purposes of the BFBS.¹

In 1870 the UK Parliament passed the “Education Act” which established a system of School Boards to “build and manage” schools in their specified areas, in particular to establish schools in areas in which they were lacking.² In 1880 an additional act was passed which made attendance compulsory for children between the ages of five and ten years. The “Board Schools” were non-denominational and children did not have to attend the Church of England scripture classes, but these classes would have provided another avenue for the BFBS to distribute their Bibles to children in poor communities.²

Figure 3: Inheriting the bible.

Emily Beckwith was born in 1877 in Bethnal Green to Zachariah Beckwith and his wife Mary Ann.³ By 1885 the family were living at 4 Finnis Street, Bethnal Green.⁴ Admission records show that Emily’s brothers attended the Wilmot Street Board School.^5,6 The girl’s admission books are missing, but it is probable that Emily also attended this school. In 1888 Emily’s mother died in childbirth leaving Zachariah with six children under the age of 14 plus a sickly, premature newborn.^7,8 In 1891, by which time she was likely in possession of the Bible, Emily had left school but was still living with her widowed father in 4 Finnis Street.⁹ How she acquired the Bible is not known.

Emily Beckwith married Thomas Pillar in 1899 and in 1901 their only child, Emily Daisy Piller was born.^10,11 At the time of Emily Daisy’s baptism, the couple were living in Brick Lane.¹² Emily Daisy married Edward Spall in 1925 and by the early 1930s the couple were living in Brighton.^13,14 By 1939 Emily and Thomas were living with her and were still living with her when Emily died.^15,16 The Bible then came into the possession of her daughter, Emily Daisy. Upon the death of Emily Daisy’s widower his executor sent the bible to their daughter, my mother. When my mother’s health began to fail in 2006, she gave it to me along with the results of some research based on the annotations (see Figure 3 and Figure 4).

Figure 4: Owners of the Bible (clockwise from top left): Emily Piller née Beckwith, Emily Daisy Spall née Piller, Patricia  Commons née Spall plus Yvonne Spall née Scivyer. (Original photograph in the author’s possession.)

Looking at the family’s history it would appear the pencil annotation on the front endpaper was not written by Emily. It was probably written by her daughter Emily Daisy during the 1900s (when she would have started school and learned to write). The earliest inscription would thus be the name and address on the flyleaf. This is consistent with Emily being aged 12-13 and near the end of her schooling when she received the Bible.

The Annotations at the end of the Bible greatly simplified the acquisition of civil and church documents for the children of Zachariah and Mary Ann Beckwith. The marriage was not so easy to find because the clerk had made a mistake in Mary Ann’s details, listing her as a spinster rather than the widow she was and attributing her married surname to her father.¹⁷ The key to identifying the mistake was provided by the entry for Joseph Charles Stevens. Joseph was her child by a previous marriage and enabled me to locate Mary Ann in the 1871 census and to confirm the error in her second marriage certificate.¹⁸

Figure 5: The marriage of Emily Beckwith's parents.

Emily Beckwith’s Bible is not a “Family Bible” in the usual sense. Rather it is a personal Bible in which she chose to note down the birthdays of her siblings, indicating a fondness for her siblings. The fact that it was carefully looked after but not heavily read seems to indicate that Emily was conformist rather than devout in her religious observances.

References

1. British and Foreign Bible Society, After a Hundred Years: A Popular Illustrated Report of the British and Foreign Bible Society for the Centenary Year 1903-4, The Bible House, London, 1904, https://archive.org/details/afterahundredye00unknuoft?q=after+a+hundred+years.
2. UK Parliament, 'The 1870 Education Act',  https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/livinglearning/school/overview/1870educationact/, Accessed November 21, 2020.
3. Birth certificate for Emily Beckwith, born 10 Mar 1877, registered Bethnal Green registration district, Church sub-district. Bethnal Green Register Office, England.
4. Electoral register entry for Zachariah Beckwith, 4 Finnis Street Bethnal Green, London, England, Electoral Registers 1885, Ancestry.com, London, England, Electoral Registers, 1832-1965, Accessed 13 Sep 2020.
5. School Admission for Alfred Beckwith, Wilmot Street School, Bethnal Green, 29 Apr 1889, Ancestry.com, London, England, School Admissions and Discharges,  1840-1911, Accessed 2 Nov 2020.
6. School Admission for Zachariah Beckwith, Wilmot Street School, Bethnal Green, 19 Apr 1891, Ancestry.com, London, England, School Admissions and Discharges,  1840-1911, Accessed 2 Nov 2020.
7. Death certificate for Mary Ann Beckwith, died 5 Mar 1888, registered March quarter, 1888, Bethnal Green registration district, Church sub-district, General Registry Office, England, vol. 1c, p. 223, no. 171.
8. Birth certificate for Elizabeth Beckwith, born 4 Mar 1888, registered March quarter, 1888, Bethnal Green registration district, Church sub-district, General Registry Office, England, vol. 1c, p. 264, no. 213.
9. Census Record for Zachariah Beckwith, aged 42, 4 Finnis Street, Bethnal Green, London, 1891 England Census, The National Archives, RG12/266/64, UK Census Collection, Ancestry.com, Accessed 29 Apr 2006.
10. Marriage certificate for Emily Beckwith and Thomas Walter Piller, married 25 Dec 1899, registered December quarter, 1899, Bethnal Green registration district,  General Registry Office, England, vol. 1c, p. 348, no. 153.
11. Birth certificate for Emily Daisy Piller, born 27 Mar 1901, registered June quarter, 1901, Shoreditch registration district, Haggerston sub-district, General Registry Office, England, vol. 1c, p. 97, no. 408.
12. Baptism of Emily Daisy Piller, baptised 21 Apr 1901, St Matthew Parish Church Register, Bethnal Green England, page 5, number 39.
13. Marriage certificate for Emily Beckwith and Thomas Walter Piller, married 25 Dec 1899, registered December quarter, 1899, Bethnal Green registration district,  General Registry Office, England, vol. 1c, p. 348, no. 153.
14. 1939 Register Record for Emily Daisy Spall, born 27 March 1901, 19 The Avenue, Moulsecoomb, 1939 England and Wales Register, The National Archives, RG101/2435B, 1939 England and Wales Register, Ancestry.com, Accessed 29 Aug 2020.
15. 1939 Register Record for Emily Piller, born 10 March 1877, 19 The Avenue, Moulsecoomb, 1939 England and Wales Register, The National Archives, RG101/2435B, 1939 England and Wales Register, Ancestry.com, Accessed 29 Aug 2020.
16. Death certificate for Emily Piller, died 27 February 1956, registered March quarter, 1956, Brighton registration district, Brighton Outer sub-district, General Registry Office, England, vol. 5h, p. 86, no. 289.
17. Marriage certificate for Zachariah Beckwith and Mary Ann Stephens, married 25 Dec 1873, registered December quarter, 1875, Bethnal Green registration district,  General Registry Office, England, vol. 1c, p. 839, no. 177.
18. Susan Law, 'The Muddled Trail of Mary Ann', Skeletons in the Closet, 27 Apr 2020, https://suesskeletons.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-muddled-trail-of-mary-ann.html, Accessed 27 Apr 2020