William Ringrose Pitts (1864-1926)

Research Notes

To avoid repetition, I’m going to refer to William Ringrose in Pitts as WRP in the following text.

Perhaps the first thing to note is that a story of his birth was passed down my mother’s side of the family. As best as she can recall, it was along the lines of this: “William’s mother worked as a maid in a big house and fell pregnant to the son of the house. To avoid a scandal, the owner of the house ensured that the boy was cared for and financially supported.” Sometimes these family stories are fictional, but sometimes they have a nugget of truth… which is it in WRP’s case?

The birth on 5 November 1864 of a “William Ringrose” at Mainridge, Boston, to butler William Ringrose and Jane (née Pitt) was recorded in Boston on 23 November by Jane.

However, none of the census returns from 1851, 1861 or 1871 have anyone with the surname Pitt/Pitts or Ringrose recorded in the Boston area. Nor have I been able to locate a William Ringrose employed as a servant in the 1861 Census in the Boston area. Nor is there a record of a marriage of a Ringrose to a Pitt. If Jane didn’t live and work in Boston, could there have been a maternity home at Mainridge that she travelled to for the birth?

For the 1871 and 1891 Census returns, WRP’s place of birth is given as “Boston” which tallies with the above birth registration… however, later returns give differing birth locations: Kir(k)by on Bain, Saracens Head (Whaplode) and even “not known” in 1911.

Although several trees on Ancestry suggest William’s mother was a “Charlotte Ringrose” (see note below about the 1881 Census entry at Market Rasen), there is a baptismal record for “William Ringrose Pitt” (son of servant “Jane Pitt” of Kirkby) at Kirkby-on-Bain on 25 June 1865 and this must surely be for WRP.

What are we to make of the above? Perhaps William and Jane were unmarried but posed as a married couple for the purposes of registering the birth. Jane then returned to Kirkby on Bain to have her son baptised, but gave her son a middle name reflecting his biological father. The baptismal record would seemingly suggest that Jane was born in Kirkby on Bain or nearby, as the township would have been expected to help support the child in the absence of a father.

During his own research into the family tree, my father Mark Pattern selected Jane Pitts (born Morton c1848) as the likely mother although the 1861 Census also lists a Jane Pitts (aged 24, born Edenham c1838) working as a servant at Denton Hall (4 miles SW of Grantham) with a farm bailiff named William Ringrose (aged 26) living a few miles away at Knipton. However, neither helps to explain why WRP’s baptismal record lists his mother as being from Kirkby on Bain (some 35 miles to the north of Morton and Edenham) nor why the birth occurred in Boston. Personally, I suspect the Denton Hall Jane to be a more likely candidate, especially given the possibility that farm bailiff William Ringrose may have also been employed at Denton Hall.

If Denton Hall Jane is WRP’s mother, then she was the daughter of shoemaker John Pitts and his wife Ann, and was baptised at Edenham on 17 June 1838. Jane next appears in the 1871 Census aged 33 as a servant (“housemaid”) in the household of colonial bank secretary Charles Anthony Calvert in Regent’s Park Terrace, St. Pancras, London. She appears to have married Royal Artillery gunner Edward Power on 22 December 1874 at Dover, Kent, but had become a widow by 1901. The 1911 Census lists her as a 72 year old charwoman living at 35 Glenister Street, North Woolwich, with an adopted 6 year old child named Ethel Watson.

In census returns, WRP’s place of birth is given as Boston (1871 & 1891), Kirkby on Bain (1901), “unknown” when he completed the 1911 Census return, and Saracens Head (1921). A likely 1881 census entry which also gives Boston as the birth place is discussed below.

In 1871, WRP was listed as the “nephew” of carpenter Joseph Marshall and his wife Ann (née Day), residing in the small hamlet of Low Toynton, Horncastle, which is six miles north of Kirkby on Bain. At present, no family link has been found between the a Pitts family and either the Marshalls or the Days.

A “William Ringrose” can be found in the 1881 Census as the “nephew” of saddler Jesse Ringrose (1849-1927) of Market Rasen, Lincolnshire. However, this is the son of William & Charlotte Ringrose of Holton-le-Clay who was baptised at Holton-le-Clay in 1845. Many of the family trees on Ancestry which contain WRP have this Charlotte as his mother, but they appear to have inadvertently conflated two different people.

The most likely 1881 Census entry appears to be for 16 year old farm servant “William Potts” (born Boston, Lincolnshire) who was working for farmer Robert Hubbert at Sibsey. If this is indeed WRP, then it places him midway between Low Toynton (1871 Census) and Whaplode (1891 Census) showing a migration path southwards.

When WRP married in 1887 at Moulton All Saints (some 30 miles south of Kirkby on Bain), he gave his father’s name as a “William Pitts (deceased)” and his own name as “James Pitts”.

That appears to be the only instance of WRP using the name “James”. The variants of his name found during research (with locations for each event underneath in italics) are:

• William Ringrose (1864, birth registration)
  Mainridge, Boston, Lincolnshire
• William Ringrose Pitt (1865, baptism)
  Kirkby on Bain, Lincolnshire
• William R. Pitts (1871, census, born: Boston, Lincolnshire)
  Low Toynton, Lincolnshire
• William Potts (1881, census, born: Boston, Lincolnshire)
  Sibsey, Lincolnshire
• James Pitts (1887, marriage)
  Moulton All Saints, Lincolnshire
• William R. Pitts (1891, census, born: Boston, Lincolnshire)
  Saracens Head, Whaplode, Lincolnshire
• William R. Pitts (1901, census, born: “Kirby Super Bain”, Lincolnshire)
  Wimbotsham, Norfolk
• William Ringrose Pitts (1911, census, born: “not known”)
  Clough Common, Holbeach, Lincolnshire
• William Ringrose Pitts (1916, son’s Army service record)
• William Pitts (1921, census, born: Saracens Head, Lincolnshire)
  Clough Common, Holbeach, Lincolnshire
• William R. Pitts (1926, death index)
• William Ringrose Pitts (1926, burial according to Lincolnshire Family History Society)

…the above mostly points to WRP’s birth place being Boston but, from 1901 onwards, seemingly something happened which made him question that — had he begun looking into his own parentage and discovered the baptism at Kirkby-on-Bain? Perhaps that uncertainty was reflected in his choice of “not known” in 1911 before finally choosing Saracen’s Head (just to the west of Holbeach Clough Common) where he had planted his roots after marriage.

My mum believes that this is likely a photograph of her grandfather, William Ringrose Pitts, although he had died before she was born.