Henry Thomas Hayward (the elder)


Prospect House, Lower Street
Prospect Cottage, Lower Street
5 Canonbury Place
26 Trafalgar Grove, Greenwich
18 Albert Street, Bromley

Occupation: Boatbuilder

Henry was the fifth of the six children born to Thomas Hayward and his second wife,  Dorothy Tapley. He too became a Boat Builder and following his father’s death in 1848 was one of the executors to his will with his brother Isaac Gammon Hayward  Henry almost certainly met Jane Rolt, his future wife, when he was visiting his brother Thomas who was living and working as a Customs House Officer in Bermondsey. The couple married in Holy Trinity Church, Newington in 1845 before they moved back to Deal where Henry continued to work with his father and brother in the Boatbuilders business based in Cottage Row.

Dover Telegraph and Cinque Ports General Advertiser Saturday 29 May 1858

Bankruptcy

Following his father’s death, he continued to work with Isaac until the business foundered in the late 1850s when they filed for bankruptcy and the partnership was dissolved after which Isaac seems to have continued to work in his own name.

By 1861 Henry & his family have moved from Prospect Cottage in Lower Street to the newly built Canonbury Place. The Deal, Walmer and Sandwich Telegraph tells us that this was near the Cemetery on what was then called Cemetery Road and now is Hamilton Road.

Greenwich

In 1871 we find Henry, his wife Jane and one of their sons, Edward, living in Greenwich where Henry is employed as a boatbuilder. By 1881 Henry and Jane are in Poplar where Jane dies in 1890 and a year later Henry has really fallen on hard times and is an inmate in Poplar Union Work House and it is probably here that he dies in 1894.

 

Henry’s sons

Little and nothing has been found about their children who survived into adulthood.  Edward Tapley Hayward married Sarah Miles in 1884 they settled in Greenwich where they had their nine children.  He eventually became an Electrical Cable Maker there.

His elder brother, another Henry Thomas, after an incident of ‘wilfully breaking a square of glass’ ended up in the Old Bailey where he received a six-week prison sentence in Wandsworth Gaol.

Woolwich Gazette – Friday 22 October 1886

The Old Bailey records tell us that he was cooper and had also spent time in India. Where and why he was in India has not been found. He was in Greenwich working as a cooper when the 1871 census was taken.

We find again him in 1889, entering  Woolwich Road Workhouse in Greenwich on 6 March and then discharging himself a couple of days later on the 8 March. After that, there are no definite records for him, as Henry Thomas was a popular name at the time and confusingly several Hayward families, including the Deal Haywards themselves, gave this name to their own sons, even those born at roughly the same time.

Other Henry Thomas Haywards

Henry Thomas (the elder) named his first two sons after himself, sadly the first died at just four months old, the second son being our cooper at the Old Bailey.  Isaac Gammon Hayward also named and lost his first son Henry Thomas he then gave the name to his third son, born in 1848. No wonder people were given nicknames!

Sources and further reading:
Newspaper image © The British Library Board. All rights reserved.
With thanks to The British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk).