Eliza Ann Breakspear

Eliza Ann Breakspear was born in 1811 in Chipping Norton, the daughter of John Breakspear and Emma (nee) Salmon. Her father seemed to have moved around as her younger sister Emma was born in 1813 in Brill in Buckinghamshire and older siblings appear to have been born in Kings Langley, Hertfordshire. This could be because John Breakspear was a licensee of different pubs – we know that he was brought up in the Blue Boar in Chipping Norton.

On 20 May 1830 at the age of 19 she married Walter Showell, in Harborne Staffordshire. He was a licensed victualler, according to his surviving son’s marriage certificate. But this was a tragic and short marriage. Her first son William Henry Showell died at nine months and her husband died in 1835 leaving her with her second son Walter who was born in 1832.

Eliza Ann Showell remarried Thomas Francis, an engraver and printer, on 10 Jan 1840 in Aston. He was a widower and already had four children. It would appear that Walter did not join the new family and was brought up by his Aunt Mary Ann Hands. Later Walter certainly seems to have more family connections with the Hands family than he ever did with his step brothers and sisters in the Francis family. This estrangement from her son could either have been at the behest of the Showell family or possibly of Thomas Francis himself. Matters could not have got any better for Eliza as again her first born in her new marriage, William Breakspear Francis died before his first birthday and she appears to have had no more children of her own. She is not recorded as living with her husband in the 1851 census.

By the 1871 census Eliza Ann Francis is shown living with her sister Emma Kirby, both widows. Emma’s husband, Thomas Collins Kirby, was a Spirit dealer and this provides further circumstantial evidence that Eliza and Emma’s father had connections with the drinks trade. Another sister Jane Davis was married to a ‘Retail Brewer’. Eliza’s only surviving son Walter Showell, went on to become a major brewer in Birmingham in the 1880’s. All this makes it interesting to speculate that the Breakspears in Chipping Norton are quite closely connected with the nearby Breakspear dynasty of brewers in Henley. The parents of the founder of the brewery Robert Brakspear (1750-1812) were indeed married in Chipping Norton in 1748. But this is close as it gets as Breakspear is a strong regional name to the Cotswolds and Oxfordshire. Its roots connect back to the family of the only English pope Nicholas Breakspear (1100-1159) – Adrian IV

Family of Walter SHOWELL and Eliza Ann BREAKSPEAR

Husband: Walter SHOWELL

Wife: Eliza Ann BREAKSPEAR

Child 1: William Henry SHOWELL

Child 2: Walter SHOWELL