Edward was born in 1885 to Hugh and Elizabeth Morgan. His baptism at Our Lady of Lourdes and St Bernard, Liverpool on 4th May shows his birthdate as 30th April but the birth appears to have been unregistered. In 1901 he was a builder's labourer and on enlistment in Canada in 1914 he was a bricklayer. I have been unable to find him in the 1911 census; he may have been abroad with the military as the Canadian attestation stated that he had previously served with 63 foot, 1st Battalion, Manchester Regiment.
Edward married Edith on 19th July 1913 in Liverpool Register Office and was said to be a marine fireman, but that may have been the bride supplying the informtion, although shovelling coal into the furnace in a ship's boiler room isn't so very different to shovelling sand and cement. Soon after the marriage they emigrated to Canada. I have found Edith travelling alone from Liverpool to Halifax and described as 'wife' in April 1914. Possibly Edward worked his passage. One child, Frank was born July 1914. In October 1914 Edward enlisted in Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. He was killed in Action on 8th May 1915 at the Battle of Bellewaarde Lake, France and his name is recorded on the Menin Gate.
However DNA testing has showed that Edward was not Terry's biological grandfather; although Edith Nora was certainly his grandmother.
Edith Nora was born 25 August 1880 in Cardiff to John Haynes and Sarah Maria (Blanche) Sedgebear. She had two younger brothers born in Bristol but by 1891 the family were in Birkenhead, Cheshire. Edith was a very colourful character.
Her first marriage was to Joseph Orme in Birkenhead Register Office on 21 June 1900 and although still only 19 she said she was 21. Edith and Joseph had one son together but they separated after about two years. By 1911 she had three sons (all with the surname Orme, but very unlikely to have been fathered by her husband Joseph). She was living in Birkenhead with the three boys, her mother and one of her brothers; she was married and head of houshold but Joseph wasn't with them. He was sixty miles away in Colwyn Bay working as a Hotel Porter and described as unmarried.
Edith also had a daughter Miriam Olive (known as Olive) born 1906, but difficult to track down because, like her mother, she too deducted years from her age. The 1939 register and her death registration both have her as born 1909 which would have been impossible as Edith's third son was born that year. However the 1921 census showed her birth date as 1906 which fits in nicely between George Eugene and Ivor Thomas Basil. Originally registered as Miriam Olive Jones she was with paternal family in 1911 but by 1921 was with her maternal Grandmother and half brothers. By 1939 she was Olive Marion Orme and she named Joseph Orme as her father on her marriage certificate although info about him was out of date.
By 1913 Edith was in Liverpool again and married Edward Morgan; as Edith Nora Haynes, spinster.
Joseph Orme was still alive!
Edward was five years younger than her and so she knocked seven years off her age, 25 instead of almost 33. I haven't yet found the passenger list, but soon after that wedding they sailed to Canada, leaving her four children in Birkenhead with her mother. A year later their son Frank, was born in Quebec City and his baptism at St Patrick's church records that he was the legitimate son of Edward Morgan and Edith Morgan!
Edward joined the Canadian army in October 1914 and by February 1915 Edith and the baby were sailing back to Liverpool to rejoin her mother and children in Birkenhead, although Edward may also have been in England for a while. He died three months later.
The next record of Edith was in 1916 when she served as a VAD nurse at Connaght Military Hospital in Aldershot, Hampshire from April-December. The record shows her home address as that of her mother; 72 Prenton Road East, Birkenhead. She is known to have also served as a VAD in Birkenhead and Liverpool.
This photo was found at http://www.greyandscarlet.com/the-connaught-hospital-aldershot.html# it includes Edith - fourth from left, second to back row.
Then in May 1918 Edith Morgan, widow, and Philip Drury were married at Seaford, Sussex.
Joseph Orme was still alive! Sadly he became a victim of the Influenza pandemic and died on Christmas Eve 1918 in Manchester.
Edith would have got away with the first bigamous marriage, to Edward Morgan,and indeed all the paperwork around Edward Morgan's death acknowledges her as his widow, but when she and Philip applied to be married in Birkenhead Register Office Joseph's sister-in-law objected, 'because she felt sorry for the boy". The couple hastily applied for a bishop's licence and were married in Seaford parish church in May 1918 but two months later Edith appeared at Birkenhead Police court charged with Bigamy. She was granted bail and appeared at Chester Assizes on 25 March 1919. She was found guilty and bound over for two years. In May 1919 she was on a ship sailing to Canada to rejoin Philip. All four sons remained in Birkenhead with her mother.
Newspaper reports of the trial state that Joseph Orme had left Edith after a couple of years when he learned that she "had been going with other men" and that he met his son at the first hearing for the first time since he was a baby. This implies that the second two sons born to Edith Orme were not fathered by Joseph.
Philip had served with the Canadian Expeditionary Force during WW1 and had suffered shoulder injuries. Maybe he was a patient nursed by Edith? He returned to Canada in December 1918 with a party of medically unfit men and Edith followed him in May 1919.
By this time Edith had permanently deducted ten years from her age. She was also quite imaginative about her father's occupation. During his lifetime he had been a book-keeper/accountant and a commercial clerk but on her marriage certificates she described him as Medical Paractitioner, Doctor of Medicine and Doctor. That information though, might have come from her mother because her brother Ivor also described his father as a medical practitioner.
Edith and Philip settled in Kingston, Ontario and had one child, Dorothy Blanche Irene (Dolly) born in 1920. Her sons all followed her to Kingston as young adults. John with his wife (Mary Williams) and three sons in April 1927, Ivor went alone in June 1927 and then George and Frank, together with their grandmother Blanche in July 1928. The passenger records show that Edith had paid the fares for John and his family and for Ivor, so it seems likely that she also funded the others although that list only shows that they were travelling to join Philip Drury. Blanche was going to her son-in-law, Frank to his step-father and George Eugene (travelling as Eugene Haynes!) was going to join his brother-in-law. Did Philip really think that Edith's older sons were her brothers? Olive remained in England; she married quite late (38 years old but only admitted to 35) and didn't have any children.
Edith and Philip married again on 9th October 1930 in Kingston; this time she was Edith Nora Orme, widow.
The final record of Edith is the registration of her death on 17th January 1938 at Kingston General Hospital from sarcoma of uterus and secondary anaemia. Philip was the informant and her age was calculated as 47 years, 4 months, 23 days. Did he really believe that she was only eight years older than himself rather than the true eighteen years older?
Child of Edith and Joseph Orme:
Children of Edith with unknown paternity:
George Eugene born Q1 1905, Toxteth Park RD
Miriam Olive Jones born Q2 1906 West Derby RD birth certificate shows her parents to be George Jones and Edith Nora Jones formerly Haynes.
