Ann Nelson (née Rhodes)
c1817 - ????

 Relationship to me: Great Great Grandmother Gen -4
 Born: c1817 at North Shields, Horbury# (recorded as 34 years old in 1851 census)
 Died: ????
 Age ??  
     
 Father:   William Rhodes ???? - ????
 Mother:   ????
Siblings: married sister - mother of Emma Turner, aged 20 in 1851 census.
 Married: Horatio Nelson m. 6 September 1837 at Wakefield (St John's Church) 1811 - 1859
 Children: Mary Ann Rhodes born at Eckington in Derbyshire 1839 - ????
  Horatio Rhodes - born at Sevenoakes? (see below) 1841 - ????
  William - born at St George Hanover Square (see below) 1844 - ????
  Herbert - born at Holywell (see below) 1846 - ????
  Adah Rhodes b. Bradford Yorkshire 1849 - 1921

# Note: North Shields and Horbury are distinctly separate places over 100 miles apart, North Shields being near Newcastle-on-Tyne and Horbury being near Wakefield in West Yorkshire. Given the fact that Ann was married in Wakefield, it is more likely that her birthplace was Horbury, just four miles away.

From Debbie Hill - 15 Feb 05:  Marriage certificate of Horatio Nelson and Ann Rhodes. At the time of the marriage, Ann lived at 'Westgate'.

In June 2007, Darren Evans from California sent me copies of pages from the 1851 census showing Ann living with her five children at 18 Broomfield Terrace in the "town" of Bowling in the "borough" of Bradford. Also present (recorded on a separate page) was her neice, Emma Turner, aged 20, presumably indicating that Ann had a married sister. No mention is made of her engineer husband Horatio who presumably was elsewhere in the country building new railways.

It appears that Ann and her family accompanied her husband Horatio to India sometime around 1857. Within a year their eldest daughter Mary Ann Rhodes married her first husband Tippet in Bombay but less happily Horatio died of cholera the following year, in 1859

Ann must have remained in India after Horatio's death since she was married for the second time in 1863 to a Mr. A.G. Gibson. David Nelson (see http://www.nelsonfamilies.com) reported that Allen's Indian Mail of Dec 14 1863, page 1078 records the marriage of "GIBSON A. G., G.I.P Railway, Lanowlee to Mrs. A. Nelson, widow of the late Horatio Nelson, Esq., Railway Contractor, Bombay at Poona, Oct 24". He further reported that Allen's Indian Mail of Jan 6 1862 (Vol XX no. 517) records the death of "GIBSON, Amelia, wife of A. at Lanowlee, aged 34, Nov. 26" (presumably his first wife).

Ann's eldest daughter Mary Ann married in Bombay in 1858 and again (after being widowed) in 1862, and she was still in India - in Karwar, on the west coast some 100km south of Goa - in 1868 when she gave birth to her son George in Karwar on the west coast of India. Furthermore, it seems that her son Horatio had married there and had also been widowed there when his wife died (also in Karwar) in 1868 (see Mary Ann's page).

It is not known how long Ann remained in India, but based on the story of her youngest daughter Adah, who at the age of about 18 [c.1867], fell in love with an Armenian and being "brought home" by her mother, it may be deduced that she returned to England with Adah around that time. Two 54 year-old Yorkshire-born Ann Gibsons are listed in the 1871 census, and even though neither were born near Wakefield, one is recorded as being born in Bradford, Horton so this migt be Ann, née Rhodes.

Last updated: 17 May 2012 - recording that Ann Nelson remarred in 1863.
Updated: 20 Jun 2011 - deduced that Ann Nelson lived in India after her husband died in 1859, and that the family moved to India before 1858.
Updated: 06 Jun 2011 - question as to where Ann Nelson lived after her husband died in 1859.
Updated: 11 Nov 2007 - birth date and census data added.
Page Created: 15 Feb 2005