Mary (Minnie) Keogh
Daughter of Catherine Lewis and George Drew Keogh, born c. 1830 in Bath, Somerset
Married (William) Henry Richards on the Nineteenth of June 1856 in Marylebone, London
Children
Catherine Mary (Kate), born on the 17th August 1857 in Kensington, London3
Clara,born 1860/61 in Bahia, Brazil
Henrietta Maria, born 1864/65 in Spain
Harry Henry G, 1867/8 in Spain
Mary was brought up in England but met her husband when she went with the rest of the family to stay with their father at the Morro Velhos gold mine in Brazil. Henry Richards was probably a mining engineer at the mine but the couple married in London in 1856. There was apparently a plan to join Mary's sister and her husband out in the Crimea but this was abandoned due to the Danube freezing. Henry called himself a merchant on his eldest daughter's birth certificate in 1857 but probably returned to mining first in Brazil and then in Spain, accompanied by his wife and family. However Mary had returned to England by 1871, living at 8 St Mark's Crescent, just by Regent's Park in London. At the time of Catherine's wedding in 1878 they were living close by at 7, Northumberland Terrace and Henry is described as an Engineer. However in 1881 Mary and her daughters Clara and Harriet (Henrietta) were in Rio de Janeiro where Clara married Arthur Manico Gull.
Neither Mary nor her daughter Henrietta are found in the 1881 or 1891 census. In 1901 they are living in Clapham - Mary is by now a widow.
Notes
1 An old family tree passed to me gave Mary's father's name as John Keogh but in the marriage register it is George Drew Keogh, and he signs as one of the witnesses.
2 Mary's husband was a mining engineer whom she met when her mother and the family went to Brazil to stay with their father - Superintendent of the St John D'el Rey Mine.
3 Mary's grand-daughter, Cissie Rattray (née Mahler), in 1950 passed down the family story:-
There was only one other story about Granny. She and another sister when quite small - - Granny had a cutting from a newspaper advertising their loss, but she cut out all the ages so that we would not know how old she was -- were kidnapped. No word about how they were found.
(Original 230x140mm)
The lost notice is dated Saturday, May 24th and so must have been 1828 or 1834. This indicates a birth date of late 1830 or early 1831 since the marriage register gives her age as 25 in June 1856.
The 1841 census (June 6) gives Mary and Fanny's age as 11, thus giving a birth date before June 6th 1830.