Charles Greenaway &Mary Gould

The town of Coventry, where the Greenaways lived, has several claims to fame, including Lady Godiva, and the British silk industry of the 18th and 19th centuries. This artwork on the Lady Godiva procession, by Thomas Stevens, was woven in silk, thus linking these two aspects of Coventry history.

Charles Bird Greenaway (1794-1845)

Mary Gould (1792-1876)

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Line of Descent to Peter Byrnes

Charles Greenaway & Mary Gould
(Great Great Great Grandparents)

Mary Gould Greenaway

Emma Archer

Grace Pobar

Thomas Byrnes

Peter Byrnes

Father:: James Greenway (1754-1840)
Mother:: Mary Bird (1756-1826)
Baptism:: 13 March, 1794, Coventry, Warwickshire, England.
Father:: William Gould (b. 1749)
Mother:: Mary Whadcock (b. 1758)
Birth/Baptism:: 26 February, 1792, Chilvers Coton, Warwickshire.
Marriage:: 11 December 1815 Chilvers Coton, Warwickshire
Children:: Rebecca (b.1816-1849); Mary (1818-c1853) married Samuel Archer, 1841, Walmer,
Kent, England; Charles (b.1820); Elizabeth (1822 - bef 1826); George (1823-1824); Elizabeth (b.1826); Sarah (b.1828); John (b.1831); Martha (1833-1843)

In the first quarter of the 19th century, the city of Coventry, in Warwickshire, was an important manufacturing centre noted for its watchmaking and textile industries, in particular fine ribbons and laces. Although the city walls and many of the old gates were long gone, it was still surrounded by common land controlled by the freemen of the city. An Act of Parliament was required to enclose this land; only a very brave politician would move to curtail his voters' grazing rights, with the result that building was restricted to a well-defined area. By the time Charles and Mary started their family, about 30-thousand people lived within a two-and-a-half mile circuit. Cottages were built in what had been the gardens of larger houses, forming enclosed courts of up to 15 small, crowded dwellings with only one entrance from the street. Ribbon manufacturers, slaughterhouses, shops, hotels, warehouses, public buildings and stables were built right up to the walls of Holy Trinity church, where several of Charles and Mary's children were baptised.

According to a Warwickshire local history site, Coventry had been involved in the silk trade since the 17th century. Originally silk was woven on hand-looms in people’s houses. There was considerable opposition to mechanisation, but eventually factories like this (at right) replaced home-working. By the middle of the 19th century, half the working population of Coventry was employed in the silk industry.

(Photo 2001 of an old ribbon weaving factory by Anne Langley)

The Greenaway family has links to both the textile and watchmaking industries - at the time of Charles and Mary's first child, Charles' occupation was noted on the baptism register of Holy Trinity Church as a 'watchmaker', living in Spring Grove. Within a year, the family had moved to Well Street, and at the baptism for our ancestor, Mary, in 1818, Charles is still listed as a watchmaker However, come the baptism of the eldest son Charles, and while the family had moved back to Spring Grove, Charles is now listed as a 'weaver' - and he stays as a weaver on official records until his death in the 1840s - except when his eldest daughter Rebecca married, where the register describes her father as a 'watchmaker'. Why Charles changed his occupation from weaver to watchmaker and back again is a mystery which probably won't be solved.

In the first general UK census in 1841, the family's name was mis-spelled as "Grinaway" (and indeed the spelling varied frequently between Greenway and Greenaway over the years) The 1841 census was notorious for being elastic as to the ages of adults, and both Charles and Mary were said to be 45 years old. At that time, they were living in Much Park street, in the parish of St Michael in inner Coventry, with four of their children still at home - (our) Mary, with her sisters Sarah and Martha, and her brother John. The eldest girls, Mary and Sarah along with their parents are listed as being weavers. At the time of this census, John was 11 years old, and Martha only 7. Within two years, 10 year old Martha had died of consumption (tuberculosis), and was buried at St Michael's church in June, 1843.

left: one of the few "old" buildings left in Much Park Street which is now mainly part of the surrounds of Coventry University.

The courts and tenements of inner Coventry were obviously not the healthiest place to live. Charles himself lived only two years after Martha, dying in 1845 of severe bronchitis. Charles and Mary's first-born daughter, Rebecca, died four years later, of "ulceration of the bowels", leaving behind three children.