Untold lives blog

In 1950 the Manchester Evening News published ‘Henri’s April Calendar’, a selection of recipes for Easter by the newspaper’s cookery columnist.  Henri had put a pot of primroses on his book shelf, shed a top coat and muffler, and was thinking of cold meals to prepare until autumn.  Food was still being rationed in Britain, and Henri comments on some items being in short supply, for example ice cream.

Spring flowers from The Cabinet of Gems (Edinburgh, 1875) Digital Store 11651.g.18 BL flickr

One of the recipes was Henri’s April Fool.  Make and set an orange jelly, beat it until foaming, then beat again adding three tablespoons of top of the milk.  Split a plain sponge cake and spread one half with raspberry jam and a thick layer of sweetened apple purée.  Pile the jelly on top, decorate with sliced bananas or cherries.  Cut the other half of the sponge into fingers and spike round the dish.   Serve very cold.  Et voilà!

To make an Easter salad, Henri suggested a bed of greens, lettuce, cress, shredded cabbage heart and spring onions, with hard-boiled eggs laid in as if in a nest.  A yellow fluffy chick standing on guard ‘will amuse even grown-ups’.

Egg salad from Mrs. Beeton's Family Cookery and Housekeeping Book (London, 1907) Shelfmark: 07944.g.63 Images Online

Children would be delighted with inch-sized bread cubes coated with cream cheese or honey, then rolled in crushed cornflakes and arranged in a nest of salad greens.

For Easter breakfast, prepare half a toasted hot cross bun with the centre slightly scooped out to form a nest for a poached egg sprinkled with chopped parsley.

Ice cream wafers were available again so Henri sandwiched them together with creamed or sliced cheese, sandwich spread, paté de fois gras, or simply butter seasoned with celery salt.   These could be served as an Easter appetiser with coffee or a ‘special drink’.

Henri thought that the man of the house might demand a hot meal at Easter,  so he recommended cooking the meat ration the day before. Slices then could be dipped in batter and breadcrumbs, fried quickly in dripping. and  served on a dish surrounded by roasted onions, grilled tomatoes, boiled new potatoes, and sprigs of cauliflower smothered in white sauce.  ‘Add a tin of peas if it’s an occasion.’

Sausages could be made ‘festive’.  Simply slit them and stuff with gherkins, mango, or mixed pickles.

Henri told his readers to cool off by eating cold tripe with boiled sliced beetroot, celery salt, mayonnaise, and lots of vinegar.  ‘It’s delicious, you know!’

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
Manchester Evening News 5 April 1950 British Newspaper Archive also available via Findmypast

Since 2012 we have been sharing stories which try to piece together the later life of Eliza Armstrong, the child bought for £5.  This post focuses on Eliza’s husband Henry George West.

Henry George West’s birth was registered in Shoreditch in the first quarter of 1857.  He was the son of Henry West and his wife Elizabeth née Wetenhall.  His parents had three children born in East London and then moved their family to Newcastle-upon-Tyne where five more were born.  Henry senior was a boot and shoe maker, then a traveller in the boot trade, and finally the manager of a shoe warehouse.  Elizabeth was a dressmaker.

In January 1879 Henry George West, 22, married Sarah Turnbull, 19, at St Peter's Church Newcastle and his profession in given as barman.  However the 1881 census describes him as a plumber and gasfitter. 

‘London sketches - at a music hall’ from The Graphic 5 April 1873 p. 329. Copyright British Library Images Online

Sarah’s father William Turnbull was said to be a wine merchant on her marriage certificate.  William appears in local newspapers in 1885-1886 as landlord of the George Tavern in King Street, North Shields, and proprietor of the Gaiety Theatre in the same street.  The business manager for Turnbull’s Gaiety Theatre in 1886 was Mr H. G. West.

Advert for Turnbull's Gaiety Theatre from Shields Daily News 1 October 1886 British Newspaper Archive

Tragedy struck the family in December 1886.  Sarah West, aged just 27, was found dead in bed by her servant Mary Cooper at home in Marine Terrace, North Shields.  The inquest found that Sarah had a weak heart.

By February 1887, the Gaiety Theatre had passed into the ownership of George Duncan, a Tyneside comedian.  In January 1888, Henry George West was landlord of the Lord Byron Inn in North Shields.  He was summoned for allowing drinking after hours.  The police could hear men’s voices and drinks being ordered.  PC King covered the back door whilst Sergeant Clarke knocked at the front.  Three men were let out the back but retreated indoors when they saw Clarke.  West claimed that the men were friends being privately entertained.  He had only been at the pub at short while and was planning to leave because it didn’t pay.  The bench fined West £1 plus costs.  The other men were each fined 2s 6d plus costs.

The report of the case in the Shields Daily Gazette stated that West’s sister Florence, who kept house for him, had given evidence in his defence.  Henry wrote to the newspaper pointing out that his sister Florence was not involved and the name given should have been Audrey West.

Henry did not have a sister Audrey.  In the 1891 census, he was again working as a plumber and living in Jarrow with the family of Albert Overton, a barman born in  Aylesham, Norfolk.  Audrey West from Aylesham is with him and the couple are listed as Albert’s brother-in-law and sister-in-law.

Two and a half years later, Henry George West married Eliza Armstrong in Newcastle upon Tyne on 24 October 1893 and appears to have continued working as a plumber from that time.  Audrey (Audy) Overton, born in Norfolk, was living in Jarrow with her sister in 1901.

When West’s father Henry died in July 1890, the obituaries spoke of his long years of work as a temperance reformer in Newcastle.  I wonder what Henry thought of his son’s pub work?

Obituary for Henry West Newcastle Daily Chronicle 5 July 1890 British Newspaper Archive

Henry George West died of heart disease on 17 February 1906 at home in Hebburn, leaving Eliza alone with five young children.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
Whatever happened to Eliza Armstrong?
Eliza Armstrong – still elusive!
Eliza Armstrong – Another Piece of the Puzzle
Eliza Armstrong’s children

British Newspaper Archive also available via Findmypast e.g. Shields Daily News 1886 for William Turnbull and the Gaiety Theatre; Shields Daily News 27 December 1886 for Sarah West’s death; Shields Daily Gazette 13 & 25 January 1888 for the court case involving Henry George West; Newcastle Daily Chronicle 5 July 1890 & Newcastle Chronicle 12 July 1890 for obituaries of Henry West.

John Danby, a successful organist and glee composer, lived in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, and was a near neighbour of the Turner family, who lived in Maiden Lane.  He suffered with poor health, probably rheumatoid arthritis, and died, aged 41, in 1798.  After Danby’s death, his wife, Sarah, began a relationship with Turner and lived with him for short periods of time at various addresses. This was never a permanent arrangement and they never married.

In 1809, JMW Turner began to employ Danby’s 23-year-old niece, Hannah, to look after his London house and gallery in Queen Anne Street, off Harley Street.  Born in about 1786, Hannah was the daughter of one of John Danby’s brothers but it is not clear which one and Turner does not name him.  There are records of William, Christopher, Richard, Thomas and Charles.  Charles, who was a bass singer and actor was living at 24 Tottenham Street in 1794 and in 1801 he lodged with Turner in a house he was renting at 75 Norton Street but there is no record of Hannah living with him.

Turner’s house and gallery at 47 Queen Anne Street West, photographed in the 1880s courtesy of The Tate 

Hannah remained as Turner’s housekeeper until his death in 1851 and then stayed on as custodian of his gallery until her own death in 1853.  She took her job very seriously and was very protective of Turner’s privacy.  As well as her domestic duties, she sometimes helped Turner in his studio, telling the son of Turner’s great friend, Henry Trimmer, that she would often set Turner’s palette.

The sexual relationship between Hannah and Turner, as portrayed in the film Mr Turner, is speculative but quite possible from what we do know of Turner’s private life.  He was certainly very fond of her, referring to her as 'My Damsel' in a letter to a friend.  He also gave her the self-portrait that he had painted in his teens. 

JMW Turner self-portrait  – image courtesy of Indianapolis Museum of Art 

Some people have even suggested that it was Hannah and not Sarah Danby who was the mother of Turner’s two daughters but there is no real evidence for this, and, in his will, Turner refers to them as the 'natural daughters of Sarah Danby'.

Hannah suffered from a skin complaint that worsened with age.  One unsympathetic visitor described her as 'a most frightful-looking creature - a short woman, with a very large head, wearing a dirty white gown, and with a ragged dirty thing tied round her head and throat, making her already large head twice its natural size.  She looked like those ogres one sees in the pantomimes'.  When she died, the cause of death was given as 'eczema exedens'.

Article entitled ‘Turner’s Den’ from Cassell's Old and New London  – reprinted in Sheffield Daily Telegraph 8 August 1876 British Newspaper Archive

Towards the end of his life, Turner spent most of his time in Chelsea, with Sophia Booth, and rarely visited Queen Anne Street.  Hannah became increasingly worried about him and eventually found a piece of paper with the Chelsea address in one of Turner’s coats.  On 16 December 1851, Hannah and her friend, Maria Tanner, walked down to Chelsea to search for Turner.  When they arrived at the address, they were told by the neighbours that, indeed, a man fitting Turner’s description lived there and that he was close to death.  Hannah did not feel up to going inside and, instead, went for help to Turner’s cousin, Henry Harpur, who was also his solicitor.  Turner died two days later, on 19 December.

Hannah was seen to be in great distress at Turner’s funeral and many of his friends showed her kindness in the following months, Ruskin’s father, John James, taking her gifts of food, including new-laid eggs.  In his will, Turner left her £100 per annum, with an additional £50 per annum for looking after the gallery.

Hannah only survived Turner by two years, dying at Queen Anne Street, aged 67, in December 1853.  She was buried in Old St Pancras Churchyard but her grave was probably one of those destroyed by the coming of the railway.  In her own will, she left Turner’s self-portrait as a youth to John Ruskin.

David Meaden
Independent Researcher

Further reading:
Selby Whittingham, ‘JMW Turner, marriage and morals’, The British Art Journal, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Spring 2015), pp. 119-125
Franny Moyle, The Extraordinary Life and Momentous Time s of J.M.W. Turner  (London, 2016)
Search for JMW Turner papers in the British Library catalogue Explore Archives and Manuscripts 

Sarah Danby – JMW Turner’s lover

Turner’s restored house in Twickenham is open.

Edith E. Cuthell was a well-known author in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  Many of her stories drew on her experiences as the wife of a British Army officer serving in India.  In ‘Up to the Hills’, published in 1893, Mrs Cuthell described a long march involving women and children.

Sketches of a march with elephants, camels, horsemen and Indian servants from Robert Place Smith, Sketchbook of 27 drawings of views made during a march from Benares to Bareilly 1814 British Library WD 312, f.25v Images Online

Troops moving between garrisons in India took a route march when there was no available railway.  They set off very early each morning in order to reach the shelter of the next camping place before the full heat of the day struck.  About ten miles were completed each day.  Troops never marched on a Sunday.

At the head of the march were the soldiers - a kaleidoscope of blue, red, green, and khaki uniforms.  They were followed by bullock carts carrying the married women and children.  Mrs Cuthell commented: ‘The soldier’s wife in India is a great grumbler, notwithstanding the comforts, and even luxuries, she enjoys in that land of extra pay and of many and cheap servants’.  However the wives might have had fair reason to complain when being jolted for days in bullock carts slowly creaking through the dust.  At the bottom of the carts was a layer of boxes with a couple of mattresses on top, all covered by thatched straw.  From time to time a wheel fell off, and pots, pans, baggage and children went flying in all directions.

Next came the sick and lame, laid on straw in bullock carts or carried along in canvas-hooded doolies. They were tended by a doctor and an apothecary.

Patient being carried in a doolie of ‘very ingenious construction’ invented by Surgeon J S Login 1850 IOR/F/4/2398/129162

Baggage animals accompanied the column.  Elephants and camels were loaded with tents, and mules carried the soldiers’ kit bags.  Cleared camping places were available at regular intervals by the roadside with trees planted by the government to shade them.  Tents were quickly erected on arrival, including one used as a hospital.  Indian cooks built fires and earth stoves to perform ’culinary wonders’.  Some of the soldiers played cards, whilst many took the opportunity to sleep.

An officer’s wife would enjoy the luxury of a tent serving as a dressing and sitting room with servants to attend her and provide a hot bath, and a separate bedroom tent furnished with a folding camp bed and washstand.  There was also a mess tent with waiters freshly dressed in clean white outfits and turbans after their march.

The camp awoke whilst it was still dark.  Fires were lit using straw bedding to ward off the bitter cold.  At the sound of a bugle, all the tents were taken down in readiness to begin the new day’s march.

Edith’s husband was Thomas George Cuthell, an officer in the 38th Foot and then the 13th Husssars.  The couple had married in Bedfordshire in 1873.  They had three daughters and one son, all born in England.  Mildred Frances, known as Millie, died at Lucknow in April 1878 aged 2¾ after suffering from convulsions.  Thomas retired from the Army in 1885 and the family lived on the Isle of Wight and later in Surrey.  Edith published books for adults and children as well as contributing articles to magazines.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
‘Up to the Hills’ in W. S. Burrell and E .E. Cuthell, Indian Memories (London, 1893)

Major William Down of the Madras Army was a subscriber to the Madras Military Fund Pension scheme.  He was invalided in service and sent home in February 1859.  He died on 20 April 1868 aged 46.  On 1 September 1847 he had married Christian Tripp Hutchinson (1823-1898) and the couple had ten children, aged between five and nineteen at the time of their father’s death.

Three of his children found themselves caught up in or at the centre of scandals including allegations of adultery and involvement in criminal enterprises.

The first was Arabella Almond Down, fifth child of William and Christian, born in Secunderabad, Madras on 13 December 1852.  In May 1869 Arabella was referenced in the divorce proceedings of Samuel George Hulse and Catherine Theresa Ingram.  Samuel Hulse filed for divorce from his wife of four years on the grounds of serial adultery.  They had married in Bengal in 1866 when Samuel was 21 and Catherine was just 15.  Samuel returned to England September 1868 leaving his wife behind in Delhi, where it was alleged she commenced a relationship with another man, returning with him to England in March 1869 and leaving her husband for good shortly afterwards.  During the proceedings, Theresa (as she preferred to be known) submitted a counter claim accusing Samuel of also having committed adultery with Arabella Down.  The court dismissed this counter-claim and the divorce was granted on the grounds of adultery by Samuel’s wife.

Two lovers in bed caught in the act by a husband holding a whip - from R. Gill, A new collection of trials for adultery (London, 1799) P.C.19.a.11 volume 2, frontispiece Images Online

There may however have been some truth to the counter claim made by Theresa Hulse.  On 23 December 1871 Arabella Georgina Catherine Hulse was born in Simcoe, Ontario, Canada, the child of Samuel George Hulse and Arabella Almond Down,  I have been unable to find a marriage record for Samuel and Arabella.  The couple had two more children: Samuel Rusk Ramsay born in October 1873 and Violet born September 1876 but dying a month later.

Samuel and Arabella’s relationship appears to have dissolved quite rapidly, as on 22 March 1879 Arabella Down was married in Manhattan USA to Dr Gordon Edward Corbould.  At the time of their marriage Arabella and Gordon already had a son, Gordon Bruce, born in October 1877, and Arabella was six months pregnant with their second child.  Following the marriage they moved to New Westminster, British Columbia, where they had five more children between 1881 and 1890.  Arabella died in New Westminster on 20 February 1894.

Samuel Hulse kept custody of his two surviving children and they were still in Simcoe, Ontario at the time of the 1881 Census of Canada.  All three seem to disappear from official records shortly afterwards, although London probate records show that Samuel senior died on 22 August 1896 in Belize, British Honduras.  What happened to his children remains a mystery to me.  Can anyone help?

Watch out for a story of forgery, deceit and more alleged adultery featuring two more of the Down family siblings, Eva and Charles.

Karen Stapley
Curator, India Office Records

Further Reading:
IOR/L/AG/23/10/1 no.4003 Madras Military Fund Roll of Subscribers: William Down
IOR/L/AG/23/10/11, Part 1 ff. 195-202 Madras Military Fund Pension Certificates, No. 90: Birth/baptism, marriage and death certificates for William Down and family.
The National Archives: J 77/93/1164 Supreme Court of Judicature, Divorce Court File No. 1164: Samuel George Hulse & Theresa Hulse

Isabella Keiskamma Frend was born 5 July 1829 at Fort Wiltshire, Cape of Good Hope (South Africa).  She was the daughter of Captain Albert Frend, HM 55th Regiment and his wife Ellen, née Last.  Her unusual middle name was taken from the Keiskamma River on which the Fort stood.

View of Cape Town and highlands by F. Jukes published 1794 Maps K.Top.117.116.e.2 Images Online

As an Army family the Frends moved around frequently.  Their first child Ellen was born in Essex in 1815, and their two sons Albert and John were born in Jersey in 1815 and 1819 respectively.  Albert senior and Ellen didn’t marry until 14 August 1820 in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, where their daughter Jane was born in September that year.  The family then travelled to the Cape of Good Hope where daughters Hester Tew (1823), Eliza (1824), Maria (1826) and Isabella herself were all born.  By 1832 the family were in India and their final child, Sarah, was born in Bellary, Madras, on 22 August 1832.

On 12 February 1833 tragedy struck the family.  Albert died in Bellary, Madras, and Ellen, who had set out with her children for Madras intending to return home to England, died on route at Cuddapah on 25 April 1833.  The nine Frend children found themselves orphaned, with only the eldest daughter Ellen already married and in a position to care for her siblings.

Isabella and Sarah were the only two not to remain in India.  They were adopted by Joseph and Emily Clulow and by 1841 were living in St Andrew, Devon.  Joseph passed away shortly afterwards and Emily moved with Isabella and Sarah to Brighton where both girls married.

On 13 August 1852 Isabella married Octavius Child, a Volunteer in the Indian Navy.  The couple had three children: Isabella Emily Sarah born 1853 in Aranjuez, Spain; Georgina Elizabeth born 1855 in Brighton; and Albert Octavius born 1857 in Santander, Spain.  Octavius died in Brighton 9 April 1858 age 31, after just six years of marriage.

Isabella married for a second time on 5 April 1862 in Gloucestershire to widower Francis Lawford, a Captain in the Madras Army.  As well as their children from their first marriages, they had a further three children together: Margaret Frances Isabella born in 1863; Bessie Ellen born 1865, died 1866; and Lionel Francis born in 1867.  Francis died on 28 August 1870, after eight years of marriage.  As a Madras Army Officer he subscribed to the Madras Military Fund Pension scheme.  Following his death not only did Isabella receive an annual pension, but so did all of Francis’s children who at the time of his death were unmarried (in the case of the girls) or under the age of 21 (in the case of the boys).

Isabella continued to live in Gloucestershire and on 15 September 1880 she married for a third time to the Baptist Minister William Millard.  There were no children from this marriage, which lasted for twelve years until William’s death in 1892.

After William's death Isabella was re-admitted to the Madras Military Fund as Captain Lawford’s widow.  Isabella moved to Ilfracombe, Devon where she remained until her own death on 14 September 1902.

Karen Stapley
Curator, India Office Records

Further Reading:
IOR/L/AG/3/10/1-2 Registers of subscribers to the Madras Military Fund and their widows and dependents.
IOR/L/AG/23/10/11, Part 2 No. 222 Certificates submitted in connection with Captain Francis Lawford’s subscription to the Madras Military Fund, including his marriage certificate to Isabella Keiskamma Child.
IOR/L/AG/23/10/13A, Part 3 No. 1103 Certificates submitted in connection to Mrs Isabella Keiskamma Millard’s eligibility for re-admission to the Madras Military Fund as the widow of Captain Francis Lawford.

Bibee Zuhoorun was one of 1.3 million Indian labourers recruited in Caribbean and Indian Ocean sugar plantations after slave-labour was abolished in the British Empire.  She migrated to Mauritius in the 1830s and on her return to India, testified in an official inquiry committee set up to investigate transgressions in the Indian indenture trade.  As the earliest voice of female indentured labourers, Zuhoorun’s testimony offers a rare insight into early migration—painting a story of deception, ill-treatment and injustice.

Report of the Calcutta Committee of Inquiry, 1839, containing Zuhoorun’s testimony 

In Calcutta, she was persuaded by a labour-recruiter to travel to Mauritius and work as a servant.  After her departure, however, she realised she had been deceived: ‘I got no clothes given to me, nor blankets, nor brass pots’.   Nor did she receive the quality of wages, or the six-month wage advance that the recruiter had promised.

In Mauritius, she spoke of the injustice meted out to fellow labourers—a story of overworked men subjected to ill-treatment and corporal punishment.  Labourers were often confined within plantations, and denied wages if they refused to work.  She felt stuck in a foreign land with no means of returning to her homeland, urging ‘every one would leave if there was a land journey; not one would advise any of their friends to go there’.

‘Indian huts on a sugar plantation, Plain William near Port Louis’ c. 1853. Photographer: Frederick Fiebig. British Library Photo 250(25) Images Online

Zuhoorun’s testimony attested to the gendered experience of indentured migrants.  While men tended to cultivate and process sugar, women often worked in the households of plantation-owners.  Zuhoorun testified to ‘making salt, climbing tamarind trees to pick them, sweeping the house, and cutting grass for cattle’.  She even learnt French to communicate with her French ‘master’.

Her testimony also highlighted instances of sexual harassment and the expectation of sexual favours—a common occurrence in plantations.  Zuhoorun complained that her plantation-owner Dr. Boileau asked her to be his mistress.  She refused, saying ‘I have degraded myself by going on board ship; I would not further degrade myself’'.  Her attempts to complain to the police were met with a three-month stint at a house of correction, and then a return to Boileau’s house, where she was beaten and harassed further.  Eventually, she decided to return to India before the end of her five-year contract, even if it meant not receiving any wages for her 2.5 years of service.

Zuhoorun’s bitterness towards the indenture system is evident in her testimony.  She urged: ‘I would not return to Mauritius on any account; it is a country of slaves; […] I would rather beg my bread here’.  Overseas migration had also damaged her social position.  She implored, ‘even my mother will not drink water from my hand or eat with me’; a sign of social ostracization tied to a taboo on crossing the Indian Ocean.

Indian and Chinese Indentured Labourers in British Guiana. Image from Edward Jenkins, The Coolie, His Rights and Wrongs (1871) from Wikimedia commons

Zuhoorun’s story is not just one of tragedy, injustice and violence, but also strength and resilience.  She not only resisted Boileau’s advances and ended her contract early, but even complained to his wife, sacrificing her livelihood at the same time.  Although relegated to the footnotes of history, her testimony remains the earliest account of a female indentured migrant, characterised by its strength, detail and passionate criticism of the indenture system.

Purba Hossain
University of Leeds

Further reading:

Read the testimonies of Zuhoorun and other indentured migrants in Letter from Secretary to Government of India to Committee on Exportation of Hill Coolies: Report of Committee and Evidence. Parliamentary Papers (House of Commons) 1841, Vol. 16, No. 45. 

Discover the life stories of indentured labourers -
‘Becoming Coolies’ - Life Stories and From the Archive
The Indentured Archipelago 

Marina Carter, Voices from Indenture: Experiences of Indian Migrants in the British Empire (London; New York: Leicester University Press, 1996).
Marina Carter, Servants, Sirdars, and Settlers: Indians in Mauritius, 1834-1874 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995).
Gaiutra Bahadur, Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture (Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 2013).

In January 1763 parts of Britain were hit by severe weather conditions.  London was badly affected, with reports that the River Thames was as hazardous as the ocean.  Seagulls were seen near London Bridge, a sign of how cold conditions were that winter.

Ice at London Bridge when the River Thames froze in February 1814 - British Library K.Top.27.41 Images Online 

The directors of the East India Company resolved at their meeting on 26 January 1763 to help the poor of London ‘in consideration of the severity of the season’.  They gave ten guineas to several parishes for the relief of the poor: St Andrew Undershaft, St Olave Hart Street, St Katherine Coleman, St Mary Rotherhithe, All Hallows Barking, St Katharine Cree, St Helen’s, and St Peter Cornhill.  St Bartholomew by the Exchange received five guineas.  The maritime pensioners living in the Company’s almshouse, Poplar Hospital, were awarded an extra month’s pension at a total cost of £200.  Another ten guineas was donated towards helping the poor of Poplar.

British Library, IOR/B/78 p.289 Court of Directors minutes 26 January 1763

A group of gardeners dressed in mourning pulled a cart without horses through Cheapside.  They asked for charity because the weather had prevented them from working.

In Cambridgeshire, Anne Sizer went to buy bread in Soham and became lost on her way back home.  She wandered into the fen, lay down, and froze to death.

On a lighter note, a gentleman from Lincoln’s Inn took on a skating challenge for a considerable bet.  He had to pick up 100 stones from the frozen Serpentine River in Hyde Park, laid out one yard apart in a direct line, and return with them separately to the starting point.  The time allowed was 1¼ hours but he managed to complete the task with ease in 52½ minutes.

Snowdrop from Sophina Gordon, Flowers, Earth's silent voices (Philadelphia, 1865) BL flickr

Not all regions were affected.  Dublin escaped the chill, and the weather was so mild in South Wales that snowdrops, daisies and primroses were blooming.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
British Newspaper Archive e.g. Leeds Intelligencer 18 January 1763; Sussex Advertiser 24 January 1763.
London Chronicle or Universal Evening Post January 1763 via Google Books.
British Library, IOR/B/78 p.289 Court of Directors minutes 26 January 1763.