June 2009 – Edition 51

As previously announced, there was a family
gathering for the May wedding of Vanessa and
Tom Seitz  in
Florida. It was a festive week for three families that
came together, including nine Jerrems (approximately
one-third of the known Jerrems in the world).

From Left to Right:
Alec Jerrems holding his wife’s arm
(Darlene
Jerrems)
Donald Jerrems, in back row,
Jacqueline Jerrems (daughter of Warren and
Mia)
Sharon Jerrems, wife of Donald
Tom and Vanessa
Warren Jerrems in back row
Mia Jerrems, wife of Warren in back row
Susan Jerrems Begat (mother of bride)
Didier standing (father of bride)behind
Susan
Olivia Jerrems, (youngest daughter of Warren
and Mia)

In this edition of the Jerrems Journal we have an
article about George Jepson, part of a series of
articles on the history of the Jerrems family in England.

George was a contemporary of “Big Bill” Jerrems, who
writes to us regularly in his Emails from Heaven (one
of George’s daughters married one of Big Bill’s sons).

My interest in George has been heightened in recent
years by the fact that his portrait hangs on our
bedroom wall at the foot of our bed. Every morning
when I wake up George is looking down at me
benevolently with a twinkle in his eye, as if to say “I
challenge you to find out who I am, this is your
mission”.

Well, I have found out a lot of things about George over
the years and I have finally written this article. It is
quite a long article but I feel that this is appropriate
because he is the only person of his era who I have
been able to describe at any length. He may be the
only relative born in the 18th Century who I will be ever
be able to talk about in detail.

WHO WAS GEORGE JEPSON?

George’s main claim to fame is that he is the great
great great grandfather of some of our Jerrems
readers, like me. Some Jerrems readers should add
a further “great” or even two “greats”. Got that? Great!

George was the father of Elizabeth Jepson, who
married Thomas Clarke Jerrems in Gainsborough (in
England) in about 1836. Thomas and
Elizabeth had 9
children, including the four boys who migrated to
Australia in 1860 and formed the basis of nearly all of
the current Jerrems families in Australia and the US.

But I am jumping ahead. George Jepson was born in
1787 in Lincoln, a city 20 miles/32km south east of
Gainsborough. After he finished his schooling
he was apprenticed as a trainee surgeon to a Dr G.
Parnell at Ganiston, to the east of Lincoln. After he had
finished his apprenticeship he trained further as a
surgeon at the prestigious Guy’s Hospital
(established in 1721) in London (woodcut engraving
pictured below) and became a Member of the Royal
College of Surgeons in 1810 (almost 200 years ago!).
He must have been a capable student because he
was only 23 when he was registered as a surgeon.

At Guy’s Hospital George had studied under Sir Astley
Cooper, who was a distinguished surgeon, being a
Professor of Anatomy and surgeon at Guy’s Hospital.
He had pioneered several new surgical procedures.
Sir Astley was created a baronet by George the Fourth
in 1821, and afterwards became President of the
College of Surgeons and Vice-president of the Royal
Society.

In 1811 George left “the big smoke” of London and
returned to his rural habitat, entering into partnership
in Ganiston with his former master (Dr Parnell), who
retired from the practice in 1827.

Meanwhile, George married Sarah Ann (I do
not know
her surname) in about 1812, and their first child was
born in 1813. They had a number of other children in
addition to their daughter Elizabeth, settling
(presumably after selling the practice) in
Gainsborough some time between 1827 and 1841.
George was obviously keen on his profession, dying
in 1872 at the ripe old age of 84, having continued
active practice as a surgeon until shortly before his
death (according to his obituary in the British Medical
Journal).

George was not a family oddity, his brother Henry was
also a surgeon, settling in Middlesex.

GEORGE’S OCCUPATION AS A SURGEON

These days a surgeon is a medical specialist
specialising in surgery. In those days the term seems
to have covered general practitioners who had extra
training in surgery. For instance a “ship’s surgeon”
was also a normal doctor.

With Gainsborough’s population of about 4000 in the
1820s, growing to 8000 in the 1850s, George would
have had a good practice. In addition to the usual
accidents and maladies of a town’s residents, the
shipping trade and light industry in Gainsborough
(including shipyards and ropemaking factories) would
also have given him a good source of trade from
injuries to sailors and workers. Later there was also
a lot of building and railway construction work.

George’s house was within walking distance of the
Town Square, so he had obtained a good location for
his practice. Presumably it was a two storey building
with the surgery on the ground floor and
accommodation upstairs, along the lines of shops
dating back to the 19th century which are still in the
area.

The house was also close to where his daughter
Elizabeth and son-in-law Thomas lived (see
later).

GEORGE’S PORTRAIT

Readers will recognise George’s portrait because it
has appeared in earlier issues of the Journal. The
painting itself is only about 18 cm (8 inches) high,
although the frame is somewhat larger. I will tell you
later in this article why I believe it is George and how I
came by the portrait.

Although these days it might be said that a portrait is
not the best source of ascertaining what a person
looked like, in the early 1800s there was not (to state
the obvious) any photography. So we have to make
the best of what is available.

I will now put on my “Sherlock Holmes” hat and make
some deductions about George from the portrait.

The portrait indicates that George found life quite
agreeable. He shows an air of quiet assurance, as if
he is about to say “Trust me, I’m a doctor”.

He has blue eyes and is very well groomed, with
closely cut brown curly hair and small sideburns. The
fact that he has thick hair with no hint of gray and no
receding hairline seems to indicate that he is
comparatively young.

George is smartly dressed in a conservative manner.
His coat has a high collar and he seems to be
wearing a waistcoat underneath it (this can only be
seen by carefully looking at the original portrait). His
cravat (the predecessor of the tie) is carefully tied and
is probably made of fine lace, the fabric used in
cravats at the time.

Although he is of medium build his sloping shoulders
indicate that he was not a sportsman (explicable also
by the fact that in cities and towns there were virtually
no sports available). His pale complexion supports
this. It looks to me as though he is in his late 20s or
early 30s, which also means that the portrait was
painted between 1810 and 1820.

I would be interested in any other comments from
readers.

The unknown artist used the “gouache” technique of
using opaque water based paints, in contrast to
normal watercolour paints which are transparent. This
method was used in the 19th Century.

HOW DID I OBTAIN THE PORTRAIT?

By George, this is quite a story. The portrait was left to
me by my father. I had heard vague stories that it was
the portrait of an English ancestor. A piece of paper
stuck on the back (which I have kept) had a note in my
mother’s handwriting that it was Doctor Jepson circa
1878, the great grandfather of my father.

I was sceptical as to the veracity of this note for some
years, until I received definite genealogical information
that a Dr Jepson was in fact an ancestor, albeit a
more distant relation than my mother’s note showed.
This led me to try and trace the movements of the
portrait to confirm that it was Dr Jepson’s.

Initially I presumed that the portrait had been given to
my father by his father. However, several years ago,
to my surprise, my second cousin Laurel told
me that
her mother used to have the portrait. We surmised
that it had instead been handed down through
Laurel’s side of the family and in fact her father or
mother had given it to my father.

It is significant that my mother was told that it was Dr
Jepson, a surgeon. She would never have heard the
name elsewhere, let alone know that he was a
surgeon.

The particular importance of these accounts is that
they show that it is very likely that George Jepson is
the subject of the portrait. Certainly the person in the
portrait is dressed in a manner befitting a “gentleman”
in the early 1800s.

CENSUS INFORMATION ON GEORGE AND HIS
FAMILY

Censuses provide a lot of miscellaneous information
which helps to paint a picture about people and their
way of life. Some of the information may not be exactly
riveting but it is useful to record it for posterity.

George’s wife died between 1835 and 1841, having
had at least 9 children at monotonous intervals over a
period of 22 years. This is considered to be a large
family these days but was not at all unusual in those
days. No doubt the employment of servants helped
the mothers of large families (when servants could be
afforded), but even so, having such large families had
its medical risks.

The children living at the time of the 1841 Census
were George bc 1813, Elizabeth bc 1816, Sarah
Anne
bc 1818, Sophia bc 1822, Charles bc 1824, Henry bc
1828, Alfred bc 1831, Octavius bc 1833, and Eleanor
bc 1835.

The male children were given a good education. For
instance George (Junior) was a chaplain who
obtained an MA at Cambridge, Charles was a solicitor
and Alfred and Octavius were surgeons like their
father.

The 1851 Census shows George living in 5 Lord
Street, Gainsborough, only 200 yards/metres from
George’s daughter Elizabeth and son in law
Thomas,
who lived at that time in 36 Silver Street. This would
have been very convenient for the families to visit each
other, and for George to make house calls during his
daughter’s numerous pregnancies. Perhaps it was a
measure of George’s skill as a surgeon that Elizabeth
had nine children and only lost one (ironically he was
named George Jepson Jerrems) from causes I have
not been able to ascertain

By the time of the 1861 Census George had moved to
6 Lord Street, possibly downsizing.

It seems likely that the family was well off in the early
years. In later life George certainly did not have to
break his back on household chores or scrimp for
money. In 1841 (aged 54) he had 2 servants too look
after himself, 2 adult daughters and 3 young children.
In 1851 (aged 64) he had a housemaid and a general
servant looking after himself and 4 adult children (2
sons and 2 daughters). In 1861 (aged 74) he had
upgraded to a housemaid and a cook to look after
himself, and a medical assistant to help him at his
occupation, with no pesky children living at home.

Out of curiosity I checked out George’s neighbours in
1851. An innkeeper, his wife and 3 servants lived in
Number 4, together with 4 lodgers, being a Brewer, a
Shipping Agent, a Rail Contractor, and a Washer
Woman. An interesting cross section somewhat
indicative of Gainsborough’s population at the time.

A surgeon would have used a horse and sulky to
do “house calls” to his patients. It seems possible to
me that he could have arranged for his horse to be
housed in the stables presumably kept at the nearby
inn, where three servants (one possibly being a
stable-hand) were employed.

Another aspect regarding his address in Lord Street
was that it was only a short walk to the magnificent
All
Saints Church (pictured below), the only Anglican
church existing
before 1843 in Gainsborough. George’s grandfather
and father were employed in the Anglican Church in
Lincoln and one of George’s sons was a chaplain, so
it is highly likely that George would have attended
church.

CONCLUSION

I am very pleased that I have finally written this article
about George, and I hope that you have enjoyed
reading it. Now, when I wake up in the morning and
see George looking down at me from his portrait on
the wall I can say to him with a completely clear
conscience “George, I know who you are. Thank you
for being my great great great grandfather, and may
you rest in peace”.

All Saints Church in Gainsborough

Guy’s Hospital (established in 1721) in London

From Right to Left:
Darlene with husband Alec,
Mia with husband Warren,
Sharon in middle,
Sisters Olivia and Jacqueline,
Susan,
Donald