Elizabeth Jane Jennings

  General Notes:

Family legend (source Gladys Baker) says that Elizabeth was the main support of the (Creedy) family. She sold Fish from a cart, touring outlying areas around Bridgwater. She also was also said to be a slum landlord - living in one slum and owning the one next door.
She had 4 children (presumed illegitimate) before marrying Thomas Creedy.

She was born in Bridgwater Union Workhouse and lived there at least once (for the birth of her son Charles Jennings) later in life. Conditions in the Workhouse were appalling. An extract from the Bridgwater Board of Guardians minute book, dated February 20th 1849 said:-
"In the first place, as a matter of detail, we ascertained that in the Boys Bedroom, Seventeen Beds were occupied by Fifty Six Boys, three and four Boys Sleeping in one Bed; The Fire place was closed up, the Watercloset attached without Water, and out of repair, and the Windows dirty, and some broken. In one of the Girls Bedrooms, there were six Beds, and nineteen children to sleep in them. The Fire place was closed up, and in the room an enclosed recess without any pretensions to a Water Closet or a Common Privy, having its floor covered with foul Straw, on which the children had voided their excrements and which had been allowed to accumulate evidently for some time, and this even within their dormitory! We also inspected the recently built Hospital attached to the House and ascertained that there were One Hundred and One Patients in it; that one Ward contained twenty five Children having the Itch, ten of whom had also Scald heads; there were Six Boys in one Bed."
(Ref:- http://users.ox.ac.uk/~peter/workhouse/Bridgwater/Bridgwater.shtml)

  Noted events in her life were:

• Residence, 25 Jun 1867, Bridgwater Union Workhouse.

• Residence, 1871, Bridgwater, Albert Street.

• Occupation: Washerwoman, 1871.

• Residence, 1891, Bridgwater, 40 West Street.

• Occupation: Self-employed Shopkeeper, 1891.

• Occupation: Fish Hawker, 1901.

Not Married.

Elizabeth next married Thomas Creedy, son of William Creedy and Caroline Andrews, on 26 Nov 1873 in Bridgwater, Holy Trinity Church. (Thomas Creedy was born in 1852 in Bridgwater.)