What was Robert Ball Hughes Mother's Name?

I wondered what was Robert Ball Hughes mother's name. Only her first name was hand-written on the family genealogy written by Ball Hughes grandson, George Edward Brown. Up until recently, I couldn't make out what the name was and I had no idea what her maiden name was.

Enter the Internet. A property insurance record on the British National Archives website listed the “Insured: Amelia Susannah Hughes, John Hallett Hughes and William Rogers Hughes, 37 Long Acre.” Robert was born at 59 Long Acre. Amelia was the first name that I could not read before. So now we have her first name and middle name, but what about her maiden name?

The answer is in the same insurance record. Robert Ball Hughes was the second son of John Hallett Hughes. If we assume that William Rogers Hughes was Robert's older brother, then William may have gotten his middle name from his mother's maiden name, Rogers. This was, and continues to be a common practice. My own middle name is my mother's maiden name. So Robert Ball Hughes mother's maiden name could be Amelia Susannah Rogers. But how could we prove it?

A Google search for “Amelia Susannah Rogers” revealed a May 11th, 1796 court record from The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, London's Central Criminal Court, 1674 to 1913. The record reveals two men were indicted for feloniously stealing a wooden cask, called a sugar hogshead, value, 5s., the property of Ann Rogers, spinster, and Amelia Susannah Rogers. A witness who knew the two "Miss Rogers" stated that Ann and Amelia Rogers were coopers (barrel makers) in the Old-Change (street).

That answers the question but creates another: Why was Mrs. Hughes referred to as "Miss Rogers" once and “Mrs. Rogers” several times if she was married? Remember, her sister Ann was the one called a spinster. It could be that Amelia Susannah Hughes was younger than her sister and not married to John Hallett Hughes yet in 1796. If she was married at the time, she may have continued to be known as Amelia Rogers or Miss/Mrs. Rogers to her customers and workers. It's all too coincidental to not be the same person in 1796 London.

By he way, one of the two thieves was sentenced to six months in prison and the other (the lookout who claimed he had a broken leg and couldn't have rolled the cask away) was publicly whipped and discharged. Read the short court transcript at http://www.hrionline.ac.uk/oldbailey/html_units/1790s/t17960511-55.html.

The Presidential Inauguration of 1829

Robert Ball Hughes and his wife, Eliza, witnessed the Inauguration of Andrew Jackson as the 7th President of the United States on March 4, 1829. Ball Hughes had arrived in New York from London only two months before and was staying in Baltimore. The inauguration of the first populist president was attended by over 15,000 people. Jackson was the first President to take the oath of office on the east front portico of the U.S. Capitol.

See http://www.americanpresidents.org/inaugural/07a.asp for the text of Jackson's First Inaugural Address.

The Wikipedia entry for Andrew Jackson says: "Jackson was the first President to invite the public to attend the White House ball honoring his first inauguration. Many poor people came to the inaugural ball in their homemade clothes. The crowd became so large that Jackson's guards could not hold them out of the White House. The White House became so crowded with people that dishes and decorative pieces in the White House began to break. Some people stood on good chairs in muddied boots just to get a look at the President. The crowd had become so wild that the attendants poured punch in tubs and put it on the White House lawn to lure people out of the White House.”

President's Levee, or all Creation going to the White House, Washington, [March 4, 1829]

See http://www.thesmartset.com/article/article09300801.aspx from Drexel University for an account of the day and http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/jacksoninauguration.htm for an eyewitness account of the inauguration.

Ball Hughes was truly a witness of history! He later called on President Jackson at the White House and after that carved a bust of Jackson. I'll have more about that first meeting later.

The images above are from the Library of Congress at: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/pihtml/pi011.html.

Who Was Barnaby Rudge?

Hints:

He was a comfort to Robert Ball Hughes for 17 years
He was white
He had a unique hair style
He was named after a Dickens character who had a pet Raven named Grip

For the answer see: http://robertballhughes.googlepages.com/silhouettes