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The Dear Bigamist

With thanks to Lorraine Dicksee for sharing her research into this member of one of the Dear families of Brentford.

The DEAR / DEER family name seems to have been prolific in Brentford and its surrounding environs through the late 18th and the 19th centuries. Contributors to the BHS Project website, Alan & Bob Dear, have written a piece on their families which take them back to the late 18th century. Their research has told us that John DEER married Ann Walters in Chiswick in 1792 then moved to Brentford where he worked as a fisherman. John and Ann had at least nine children between 1793 and 1814, with one of their younger sons – Thomas born in 1809 – being the direct ancestor of both Bob & Alan.

In their account of the family, it is stated that John Deer had a brother named Charles and it is Charles where my interest lies. I have had to make some guesses here. If John Deer & Ann Walters married in 1792, they may well have been born around 1770 if they were both of 'full age' at the time of their wedding. I have found an 1835 burial at St George Old Brentford which looks to be the right John Deer and indicates he was indeed born around this date. The Charles Deer/Dear I am trying to locate married Ann West at St Mary's Ealing in 1787. Using the same logic regarding dates and ages, Charles may have been born around 1765 which would make him five years older than John Deer if they were brothers. I currently have no other records to check the age of Charles.

Let's work on the basis of these theories for now, as the main purpose of this article is to tell readers the story of the DEER/DEAR bigamist. This story wouldn't change if we discovered that the John and Charles Deer described above were not brothers. All that would happen is their relationship would change as it would be far too much of a coincidence for them not to be related at all.

Like John Deer, the Charles who married widow Ann West was a fisherman in Old Brentford. I haven't yet discovered Ann's maiden name, but I wonder if her deceased first husband was a member of the West family who ran the Swan pub on Brentford Ait. Additionally, the 1838 & 1848 poll books for the area show that a Charles Deer of Old Brentford possessed 2 Copyhold houses at Swan Steps.

Charles & Ann Deer had at least seven children: Charles (1788), Henry (1790), Henry (1807), Mary Ann (1809), Charles (1812), George (1815), Stephen (1819). At least the last three were born in Brentford although all of the children were baptised back at St Mary's Church in Ealing. There must surely have been other children between the two Henrys as there is a gap of about 17 years, unless there is some other explanation such as the family moving away then returning or Charles being away from home for some reason. I also assume the first Charles and the first Henry died prior to the birth of their namesakes.

I have only found additional information for two of these children:

Charles Deer/Dear (1812-1862)

The second child named Charles died at the age of forty in a tragic boating accident on the River Thames in 1862 whilst carrying out his work as a lighterman to transport a cargo of sand. His sailing barge 'William Henry' of Brentford was struck and sunk by the 'Metropolitan' screw steamer throwing him overboard. His body was found floating on the river a short while later. At his inquest at the Black Horse Tavern in Poplar a few days later, the coroner returned a verdict of 'accidental death'. The story was reported in London's Weekly Dispatch of 30 March 1862. Charles left a wife Frances (nee Eyre) - who he had married in Southwark in 1839 - and three daughters to fend for themselves, but all the girls soon married with one of them emigrating to Australia. Frances died in 1886.

Stephen Cummins Deer/Dear (born 1819 died unknown)

Why did the youngest child of Charles & Ann let the side down? Stephen's background has proved quite difficult to disentangle and my account of him may yet turn out to be incorrect. As it stands, he looks to have married Emma Taylor in March 1839 following the birth 3 – 4 months earlier of their illegitimate son Stephen Dear Taylor. The marriage took place in Lambeth, well away from their local area, possibly to escape the view of those who might have looked upon them as shameful.

I guess this could have possibly been the trigger for all that followed, especially if 20-year-old Stephen was pressurised to marry a woman he didn't love because he had made her pregnant. Emma was only 17.

They were together with their infant living in Brentford High Street at the time of the 1841 census but within a few short years things were very different.

Sometime around 1847-1848 Stephen and Emma parted. Their young son soon ended up parked elsewhere, in the 1851 census return found as a 'visitor' at the home of Emma's parents in Isleworth.

Meanwhile, Stephen effectively reinvented himself and met a young widow named Louisa Webber who he married at Hampton, Middlesex, in July of 1849, presenting himself as a bachelor named Stephen Cummins Charles Dear. Somehow Louisa quickly discovered the truth about Stephen's past and reported him to the police. At Brentford Police Court on 8 September 1849 Stephen was committed for trial, appearing at the Old Bailey on the 17th of that month when he pleaded guilty. A hearing nevertheless took place, if for no other reason than to help the judge determine the appropriate penalty.

As was the law of the day, wife Emma was not allowed to give evidence, so largely the case rested on Louisa's testimony. In his defence, Stephen told the court that he and Emma had parted by mutual consent because they were not getting along. He claimed that it was Emma who wanted to be free to marry again - although I have found no evidence there was any truth in this allegation - so he had drafted a document which he produced to the court to confirm their agreement:

The sheet bore several signatures including one purported to be that of his wife.

Unfortunately, the judge wasn't impressed. His response was to condemn Stephen for inducing his wife to be a party to such a "profligate and disgraceful proceeding as the alleged sale", and for persuading her to believe that their marriage could be ended in such a straightforward way. So not only had Stephen broken the law by marrying a second time when his first wife was still alive, but that act had been aggravated by this behaviour. Stephen was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment with hard labour. Despite this, he was clearly released pretty soon after……

The most shocking part of this story, sadly, is that when Stephen was released from prison he obviously immediately returned to Emma and she took him back. On 30 July 1850 she gave birth to another son, William Joseph Herbert Dear, who must have been conceived around October/November 1849 assuming William was a full-term baby. The birth took place in Poplar, Tower Hamlets, near to where Emma's married sister lived in West Ham, Essex.

In Emma's favour, I would say that in 1850 women had no rights whatsoever and were effectively treated as property by, firstly, their father, then by their husband. It was hard for a woman to support herself financially so she may have seen the option of taking back her errant husband the easiest way out of a future life of poverty. They must have stayed together for a while, or possibly Stephen simply returned to her from time to time on his terms, as Emma had another child, Ann Eliza Dear, in 1854. On this occasion Emma's baby was born in Brentford.

Emma's sister Ellen and her husband Robert McQueen subsequently went on to offer support to Emma as she lived with them by the time of the 1861 census, indicating her relationship with Stephen had finally ended, either because he had deserted her permanently or died (I have not yet traced his death registration). Even after her sister died Robert allowed her to stay on as his housekeeper, looking after his young daughter and his lodgers.

Emma never had any of her children living with her. Her first-born Stephen Dear Taylor is nowhere to be found after the 1851 census when he was with his maternal grandparents. I wonder if he was adopted by a new family and had his name changed or maybe he was sent overseas on some programme for finding new homes for parentless children. For example, the Children's Friend Society for "the Prevention of Juvenile Vagrancy" through the reformation and emigration of children was founded in London in 1830 with cooperation from the UK government. Such children were sent out to British colonies including South Africa, Canada, Mauritius & Australia.

Second son William was baptised in West Ham a month after his birth then baptised again in November 1860 at the age of ten when his father was named erroneously as Joseph Dear. I believe this baptism was probably arranged by someone other than the parents, which would explain the mistaken name. Five months after the second baptism, the 1861 census shows William living in Poplar as a "nurse child" with married couple Charles and Amelia Guinn, probably unofficial adoptive parents. William's surname was written in the census return as Guinn then erased and changed to Dear which is supportive of the idea the couple were trying to treat the child as their own. The second baptism also suggests this is the likely date when William was placed with his new family. William grew up to marry and live out his life in Yorkshire. He was obviously made aware of his birth father's identity as on his marriage certificate he stated his father's name to be "Stephen Cummings Dear".

I found the youngest child, Ann Eliza, in the 1881 census which indicates she was 27 years old, unmarried, and working as a nurse at the County Lunatic Asylum in Colney Hatch, Friern Barnet, Middlesex. Unfortunately, that is where I lost track of her, nor could I identify her whereabouts in her earlier life. Perhaps she, too, had been 'farmed out' to an adoptive family until she was old enough to make her own way in life.

The children's mother Emma eventually left Robert McQueen's employ, working for a time as a domestic servant at 'The Railway Hotel' in New Southgate, Friern Barnet, not far from where her daughter was working in the asylum. It would be nice to think this was intentional and that they saw each other from time to time. Emma then took a housekeeper's job with a family in West Ham even though she was advanced in age. She died at 70 years old in 1892.

As for Stephen Cummins Dear, subsequent to his Old Bailey appearance I have not found him anywhere aside from being stated to be the father of Emma's children in the baptism registers up to 1854.

Links

The Dear family hub has links to research by several descendants.

Record of sentencing Stephen Cummins Charles Dear on the Proceedings of the Old Bailey website (free access).

Published February 2026