John Ginn of Eynesbury died 1819

John Ginn here was the son of James Ginn of my post of  3rd May 2020.  He was a Tailor and that is sadly pretty much all I know about him.  He married Lydia Plowright at St Neots in 1798.

Lydia died in 1816 aged 45.  John in 1819 aged 42.  They obviously both had hard lives.


John and Lydia has six children

Joseph - a Tailor, married  Mary Gardner at Wapping in London in 1828 and they had a massive family

James- likely a tailor, he died unmarried in 1842 in St Neots aged 41.

Robert - has a bit of a tale to tell.  This guy was born in 1810.  He was a Tailor, 5ft 5 ins tall with brown eyes.  In 1830 this guy was at Shefford where he was dragged in by the authorities for getting a girl called Sarah Saunders (descendants say Sanford so a typographical error in the record ?)  from Potton if memory serves (she was actually born in Southill in Bedfordshire) pregnant.  A bastardy maintenance order was made against him but he ran, so they stuck him in Bedford Gaol to cool him down.

This child was a Joseph Ginn (below) and, perhaps surprisingly, Robert and Sarah became a couple, they returned to Eynesbury where they had a daughter Lydia in 1832.  It is not thought they ever legally married.

Now I know that there are descendants out there, so they should (lol) pay attention as they may not otherwise have worked this out.

Robert and Sarah moved around.  They went from Shefford to Eynesbury, then Hitchin and Luton before returning to St Neots by 1840 or so.  Little Lydia died in Luton in 1836.

They had a number of sons, but in or about 1840 Robert died or scarpered, as in 1841 in the census, Sarah was alone in  St Neots as a laundress with three sons and a fourth on the way.  This woman was a grafter, she was still working and on her own when she was 71, still in Green End in St Neots.

Robert and Sarah had the following surviving sons

Joseph born in 1830 in Shefford 
William born 1835 in Hitchin Hertfordshire
James born 1837 in Luton

George born 1841 in St Neots

There are clearly descendants as some of these married.  George was in the Navy which you can see on Ancestry.  What you cannot see, which is in my notebooks, is that James here joined the 32nd Foot in 1858, was constantly on the run (J Ginn at Aldershot in 1861) or in prison (Preston prison at one time) and he received a dishonourable discharge, still in prison in 1863.  He was married with a  younger wife Fanny in 1871 back in St Neots.

Elizabeth - is untraced

William - died infancy

John - is believed (no other candidate) to have been transported as a convict to Australia.  I suspect he was a Tailor.  A John Ginn born 1810 or so was convicted of stealing a cloak at Toddington near Luton in 1837 after having been arrested in 1836. He was 5ft 7ins with brown eyes.  I suspect that he was travelling with his brother Bob who I know was in this area in 1836/7.  John was put in Bedford Gaol.

He claimed to have a wife and child, but I think this was a lie to try and avoid transportation.  It did not work - he was sentenced to be transported to the Penal Colony of Van Dieman's Land (Tasmania) for seven years.  You could not come back.

He was transferred to the "Justitia" Hulk ie prison ship (originally HMS Hindoostan  - which fought in  the Napoleonic Wars - see ship on the left below) and then sailed for Tasmania on the "Neptune" in 1838.  He arrived safely, served out his time and received his Ticket of Leave (conditional freedom) in 1844 (Tasmanian Archives).   The Tasmanian Archives have him as sailing from Hobart on the "Clarence" in 1846 to Port Albert in Victoria, Australia.  So here he is in mainland Oz.  There could be a whole new story here. I do not know what happened to him after that.