John Smith's Family Tree Website

Flitt family

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Part 4: Lucy Flitt (c1834 - 1915)

Early life and marriage to Thomas Walsh

Lucy Flitt was baptised 24 July 1834 in Chipping Barnet, Hertfordshire. She was the daughter of Edmund Flitt III and Lucy Rabbitts. When she was aged about one, her parents were tried and found guilty of stealing. They were both sentenced to seven years transportation to the colony of New South Wales. Her father died on board a prison hulk in England while awaiting transportation and her mother was sent to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania). Lucy was brought up by her father's parents in Chipping Barnet and received some schooling, while her younger sister was brought up by their mother's relatives in Somerset.

By 1851, now in her late teens, Lucy was working as a house servant for a surgeon in St Pancras, London. Her mother had completed her sentence and been given a Free Certificate in 1843 and returned to England, settling in London. When Lucy married bricklayer and plasterer Thomas Walsh (c1828 - 1899) 10 June 1855 at St John’s Church, Paddington, London, her mother was one of the witnesses. Lucy and Thomas had known each other since they were little, the Walsh and Flitt families both having lived on Wood Street, Chipping Barnet. Nine years earlier, Thomas’ sister Rebecca had married Lucy’s uncle Charles.

Later life

After their marriage, Lucy and Thomas returned to Chipping Barnet to live and raise their family. Although they moved house several times (including back to Wood Street where Lucy had lived with her grandparents), they always stayed within a 500m radius of the area.

They had seven children: Walter, Thomas, Elizabeth, Richard, William Vass, Mark and Rebecca (more information about them appears in the Walsh section). Thomas’s older brother Michael lived with the family for many years, as did one of their grandsons. By 1891, they had no family living with them though one of their children was living in the same street. Perhaps times were tough then as they took in three boarders. Thomas died 14 September in 1899 following a stroke. Lucy went to live with youngest daughter Rebecca, then eldest son Walter. She died 28 July 1915, aged 82, in the Hendon Workhouse Infirmary. Patients in workhouse infirmaries were not necessarily workhouse inmates but those too poor to afford private medical care. (Some workhouse infirmaries became National Health Service (NHS) hospitals after 1948.) The cause of Lucy’s death was listed as ‘senile decay’. It is possible that she was suffering from a progressive loss of mental capacity (like Alzheimer’s disease) and Walter could not cope with her care. [1] 

Footnotes

[1] Old Diseases (http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ar/county/greene/olddiseases1.htm); Rudy's List of Archaic Medical Terms (http://www.archaicmedicalterms.com/)