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m. 24 Jan 1813
Facts and Events
Charles Grant was baptised on 20th October 1816 at Sidlesham in Sussex, son of Lucy Grant, formerly Richardson, and her husband Charles Grant, who worked at different times as a labourer, blacksmith and fisherman. When young Charles was just two years old his mother died. A year later his father married again, with his second wife being Mary Ann Chaffer, who thus became young Charles's stepmother. Charles appears in the 1841 census living at the hamlet of Mill in Sidlesham parish and working as an agricultural labourer. Two years later he was married to an Ann Leggatt. Like Charles, she was from Sidlesham, but they did not marry there. Instead they married a few miles to the west at the major port of Portsmouth. At the time of their marriage Charles was about 27 years old and Ann 22 years old. Just over nine months after their marriage, they had a daughter, Fanny, baptised at Sidlesham. Fanny's baptism describes Charles as a sailor. It seems quite likely that Charles went overseas for a considerable time at this point - indeed, the next positive trace of him that has been found is over twenty years later in 1867. Meanwhile, in 1847, Charles's wife Ann had a daughter named Sarah baptised at Sidlesham. The baptism record describes Ann as a married woman but pointedly does not name the baby's father, strongly suggesting that it was well known that Charles was not the father. Ann moved from Sidlesham to Portsmouth where she had another son in the mid 1850s. She married again in 1858, probably assuming Charles to be dead. As it happens, he was still alive. In fact, about the time that Ann was marrying again, Charles seems to have been living in Baghdad, then part of the Ottoman Empire. He appears to have had a relationship with a woman named Theresa with whom he had a son, Joseph Hendrie Grant, born there some time around the late 1850s. Charles did eventually return to England, bringing young Joseph with him, although no sign has been found of Joseph's mother Theresa in England. Charles returned to his native Sidlesham, where young Joseph was baptised in 1867, by which time he was probably about nine years old. Charles died at Sidlesham on 23rd October 1868, aged 52. He left a will which described him as a pensioner. At the time of Charles's death his father and stepmother were still alive. Charles's father died just under two years later. The 1871 census finds Charles's son Joseph living with Charles's stepmother at Sidlesham and described as her grandson. References
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