As with the Pennells, it has been a challenge to get any solid proof of heritage. However, when the Crews immigrated to Canada, they brought with them tales that, regardless of how much work and research is done, cannot be verified in any way. The original source of these stories seems to be from Effie Scott who was the granddaughter of Eliza Hone.
Tale #1: Marie deFawcett
It has been verified that Rachel’s father, William Henry Crew was a successful brickmaker in London, England. His sons, Richard and William (the younger), as well as John Bradfield all worked for him in London. James Hone (Eliza Crew’s husband) was living with the Crews in 1851 and reports that he is a brickmaker as well.
In 1851, the Crews lived at 4 Parkplace with Samuel Sheppard’s family (Susan’s brother) and another family (relationship unknown).
The story that has been handed down through Effie Scott (Rutherglen, Eliza’s Crew descendant) and perhaps from Alice Pennell (Rachel’s daughter), was that Susan Crew’s mother was Marie de Fawcett.
This is from a document authored by Myrtle Connolly, nee Keech, who’s great-grandmother was Rachel Crew.
Marie deFawcett was a descendent from the Imperial House of Orleans, an important part of French Royalty. The first Duke of Orleans was the son of Charles V of France and was born 1372. His name was Louis de Valois.
The following is from my own “book” I authored in 1994.
Susan Shepherd’s parentage is still somewhat of a mystery. Her mother was definitely [NOT proven and unlikely] Maria deFawcett, but its possible that deFawcett was Marie’s married name and that when she married a second time to a William Shepherd, he adopted Susan. Its possible that Marie was a French Hugenot who fled France after witnessing the murder of her parents. [not possible as Marie’s life is not contemporary with the Hugenots. Possibly her parents or grandparents]. DeFawcett, according to the French Hugenot Society of England, is an English name, not a French one.
I did some digging into the Hugenot immigration to England and my notes say that around 1705, Hugenots settled in south England, Canterbury, Kent, Sandwich, Faversham, Shoreditch, London & Spitalfields. Since the beheadings of Marie Antonoinette and Louis XVI didn’t take place until 1793, the Hugenot movement must have continued on until the end of the century. The only surviving daughter of the King and Queen, Marie-Theresa didn’t get herself out of France (a 2nd time) until 1815. (Wikipedia)
1841 England Census finds William and Susan Crew with their children on John Street, Bethnal Green. Since William allegedly had a “successful” brickmaking business that employed at least 4 men (Charles Pennell, Richard Pennell, William Crew (the younger) and James Hone), I did an internet search of the history of Bethnal Green to see if I could find anything.
Huguenot influence was diluted by outsiders from other parts of London. Over 80 per cent of Bethnal Green’s population in 1851 and 1861 had been born in London. Although Bethnal Green was still the main silkweaving parish, the industry was in decline and weavers were under-employed. Occupations such as tailoring, furniture making, and costermongering replaced it but none was prosperous, sweated labour was prevalent, and the population was caught in a downward spiral of poverty. A modern analysis has placed Bethnal Green as the second poorest London parish in 1841, the poorest by 1871.
Dickens made Bethnal Green the home of Nancy in Oliver Twist (1838).
The most detailed report on Bethnal Green was published in 1848 by Dr. Hector Gavin, health inspector and lecturer at Charing Cross hospital, who hoped to enlist the rich in ‘the great work of sanitary improvement and social amelioration’. He wrote before development around Victoria Park, when the ‘most respectable’ area was Hackney Road. The rest of the parish, including the area on either side of Green Street, was ‘filthy’, ‘appalling’, and ‘disgusting’. The older districts bordering Spitalfields contained paved streets and larger houses but the former were broken up and the latter overcrowded. Elsewhere roads were unmade, often mere alleys, houses small and without foundations, subdivided and often around unpaved courts. An almost total lack of drainage and sewerage was made worse by the ponds formed by the excavation of brickearth. Pigs and cows in back yards, noxious trades like boiling tripe, melting tallow, or preparing cat’s meat, and slaughter houses, dustheaps, and ‘lakes of putrefying night soil’ added to the filth.
Bethnal Green: Building and Social Conditions from 1837 to 1875 | British History Online (british-history.ac.uk)
Bart Jones, an avid Crew researcher in New Zealand, is convinced that this whole France, Hugenot story is nothing but gossip and has no validity at all. I’m about 75% in agreement with him. My hold back in completely rejecting the whole story, is that I believe firmly that within every piece of family gossip, is a thread of truth that has been exaggerated or “bent”. Also, when my DNA analysis came back from both Ancestry and 23andMe, both shows small signs of Northeastern France.
I also think that there’s a misconception that if a surname starts with “de”, that indicates its a French surname. This isn’t the case. The prefix “de” means “of” and is used in French, Spanish, Italian, etc.
For instance, when a woman married and took her husband’s name, she’d add “de” in front of the husband’s surname. Somewhat the same as “Handmaid’s Tale”, where Offred meant “of Fred”. Margaret Attwood could have written “deFred”. But I digress…
“De” was also misused, as common people began to realize they could pass themselves off as aristocracy by added “de” to the beginning of their surname. For example, my name would be Wendy deSmith. Hmmm…. well sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.
The surname Fawcett isn’t French, however saying it with a French accent is like mispronouncing Target and Leon’s Furniture. North Americans think they sound higher class.
I was able to find the marriage of William Crew to Susan Sheppard. He was a widower. His first wife was likely Ann Swallows.
Susan’s parents were Charles and Ann, as stated on her baptism in 1798, Tring, Hertfordshire. No mention of Marie deFawcett.
In find it interesting the sequence of events leading up Susan’s death.
- 1861, Susan and William were living with Richard and Rachel (Crew) Pennell.
- 1869, William died.
- April 2, 1871, Susan is a pauper in a “workhouse” (an institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment)
- May 1875 Richard and Rachel boarded the S. S. Niger for Canada.
- December 1875 Susan dies.
This post really needs to be read with the post on Miss Rosamond Crocker. There is information in both that are eerily similar.
So there are two Marie’s that escaped France: Marie Theresa (dau. of Marie Antoniette) and Louise Marie (sister of Marie Theresa’s husband). The story of William Pennell assisting in these escapes could very well be the fodder for the Marie deFawcett stories, and somehow the story went from the Pennell side to the Crew side.
And also, the “de” did NOT designate Marie deFawcett as French. It only showed that she was of a culture that used the “de” to either show aristocracy or to show Fawcett was her husband’s surname, not hers. This was a French, Spanish, Portuguese, practice.
Can’t help but wonder, where “Fawcett” came from?
Yesterday (March 26, 2023), while staring at the known ancestry chart of Susan Sheppard, I saw a name I’ve seen before that somehow suddenly looked different. Susan’s husband was Henry Crew. His mother’s name was Elizabeth Foresee (sounds a lot like Fawcett) and Elizabeth had a sister Mary, which brings me to Tale #2.
Tale #2: Duke of Rutland
This is a story that my Aunt Edna told me.
Susan Shepherd had a sister, Mary, who worked for the Duke of Rutland a “Nurse maid and seamstress”. Supposedly, there are memories handed down by Effie Scott, that Eliza recounted visits made by Mary coming to visit her sister Susan by horse and buggy on her days off. Knowing the above description of Bethnal Green, Mary must have found those visits deplorable.
The story goes that the Duke of Rutland was so grateful for Mary’s services, that he willed her a considerable sum of money. Mary remained a spinster, and when she died she left the small fortune to her sister Susan, who, for some reason, never claimed it.
Never wanting to leave a “small fortune” behind, I wrote someone who could look into a database of the employees of the Duke of Rutland during the early 1800’s. It was really no surprize to receive an answer that no such person by the name of Mary Sheppard was ever in the employ of the Duke of Rutland.
However, I did research who would have been the Duke at the time Mary would have been old enough to be a “governess” and would that Duke have needed a governess.
John Manners was the 5th Duke of Rutland. He married Elizabeth Howard who had 10 children and died in 1825, only 5 years after the birth of their last child. John remained a widower until his death at age 79. So there was a need – I just can’t find out who looked after his children after Elizabeth died.
However, the most damning thing about the story is that from Belvoir Castle to Bethnal Green is a 13 hour bike ride or a 2 day walk. Somewhere in between is a buggy ride, and not something one would do on her “day off”.