Family Tree Family Group Sheet
Henry was born at Hedley Place, Hoxton in Shoreditch on 9 November 1839 and he was originally registered as Morley Bigg, the Henry being added subsequently. He was christened at St John the Baptist, Shoreditch on 8 March 1840. Nothing is known about his childhood and although we know he kept a diary, as this is quoted from in JBB's letter, we have no knowledge what became of it.
Henry married Anna Bolton on 11 August 1866. Anna's father, John Bolton, was a Stationer in Cheapside and had been born in London, but her mother, who was also called Anna had been born and brought up in Cavendish, Suffolk. Anna's mother's maiden name was Macro and her grandmother's maiden name was Maxum, so it seems somewhat bizarre that she married Henry Bigg!
Henry and Anna were married at St Philip's, Dalston, in Hackney. Anna's father and Henry's sister Flora acted as witnesses. During their marriage they had five children, all christened with their second forename as Bolton. John, the eldest, was born on 1 October 1867, the second son Thomas on 26 October 1869, followed by Amy, Arthur and Harold at intervals of 2 to 4 years. Tom died when he was four but all the other children grew and prospered.
When they were first married, Henry and Anna lived in Albion Road, Stoke Newington and Henry used to walk to his place of work in the City, a matter of three or four miles. At this time, he was employed by The Madras Irrigation Company, which was based in Coleman Street near Moorgate. In JBB's letter he quotes from Henry's diary, saying that Henry started working for a solicitor in 1853 when he was 13 or 14. He had various jobs subsequently and in 1857 he was without work for some months before getting a job as a clerk with the Eastern Railway Company. Finally, after a short spell with an upholsterer, he joined The Madras Irrigation Canal Company in 1858 at the age of nineteen.
In 1870, Henry bought a house in Salisbury Road, Dalston for which he paid £400. He seems to have stayed working for the Madras Irrigation Company for nearly 25 years. During 1880 and 1881, Henry went through a very difficult time. The company, where he now acted as Registrar, was acquired by the Indian government and owing to litigation, and the death of the former company secretary, no salaries were paid to the staff for nearly two years! Henry was by now 43, without a job and feeling that there was a general view that one was "too old at forty" for employment. (Things do not seem to change much!) However he finally managed to get work with the Bengali Central Railway Company, a new company starting up, at a salary of £150 a year. On this he had to keep a wife and three children, his eldest son John having by now started working himself.
By the time of the 1881 census, he had moved to 65 Dynevor Road, Stoke Newington. As Arthur was born in Hackney in 1876 but Harold was born in Stoke Newington, we can presume that the move took place between 1876 and 1881.
Nothing more is known of Henry until he died of cancer of the liver on 10 February 1902. He was buried in Abney Park Cemetery. In his will, he left his estate of £1910, quite a tidy sum in those days, with the stipulation that his estate "shall be devolved exclusively to the benefit of my children only John, Amy, Arthur and Harold, ... for their maintenance and support until they can provide for and maintain themselves individually. If there should be any residue after this has been done I direct that this shall be divided equally between them ... when the youngest survivor of them attains the age of twenty-one." A surprisingly modern sounding will for one written well over a hundred years ago - until you realise that no mention is made of any provision for his wife, Anna!
On Henry's death in 1902, Anna originally opted to stay in 65 Dynevor Road with Amy, Arthur and Harold. However, the family's financial affairs now became the responsibility of Arthur as the eldest male still living at home, and who was now 26 years old. According to his brother, John, who had left home when he married in 1894, he found these responsibility difficult and as he was intending to get married himself shortly anyway, they decided to sell the house and go into apartments.
Arthur married Rose Heusler in 1903, Amy married Albert Cocker in 1905 and Harold married Emmeline Pidduck in 1908. Anna continued living on her own until 1928 when she was 83. However, in January of that year she went to live with her eldest son John, then aged 60. She finally died on 11 April 1930 aged 85.
To put the financial matters in this section into context, the second half of the 19th century had no inflation, rather the opposite with prices being perhaps 20 to 25% lower in 1900 than they were in 1860. This is an average deflation of about 4% per annum over this period. The last house that Henry bought, which was on 6 August 1877, at 65 Dynevor Road, Stoke Newington, cost about £400 as did the first house bought by his eldest son John in 1895. According to figures published by the Economist, the purchasing power of the pound was about 67 times higher in 1900 than in 1998. However, these figures must be viewed with great caution owing to the vast changes in the relative value of different items over this period. In particular, house prices have suffered much greater inflation than most other prices since the 1960s.