Early years
A
nn Elizabeth Shepherd was born on 16 November 1837 in Finchley, the daughter of
William Shepherd and Sarah Hodge. Three weeks later, she was baptised at the Church
of St Mary where six of her siblings had been baptised previously, the first one
in 1816, about the time this watercolour was painted.
At the time Ann was born, Finchley was a patchwork of small settlements with a population
of around 3,600, most of whom were either labourers, like her father, or servants.
Ann’s childhood and early adulthood were spent in a semi-rural environment on the
edge of Finchley Common in a house on Red Lion Hill. The hill takes its name from
an inn which stood at the corner of Red Lion Hill and Elmfield Road, originally known
as The Rabbit and renamed the Red Lion in 1786. Before this, the area was known as
Cuckolds Haven, probably after a family by the name of Cuckold; the name survived
into the middle of the nineteenth century as ‘Cockey Haven’, and it was this name
(shown as Cockens Haven) that appeared on the census return of 1851.
The photograph
on the left shows Red Lion Hill, although about half a century after Ann had first
known it.
Leaving home
By 1859, Ann had met Joseph Collins, a labourer, like her father, who had had been
born in nearby Highgate. In the Spring of 1859 she discovered she was pregnant. On
Monday 13 June, she and Joseph went to the Church of St James in Norlands where they
were married, giving their addresses as 25 Princes Road West, Norlands (now called
Princedale Road). It is not known how long they had been living at Norlands or whether
they went there to escape the censure of Ann’s parents and neighbours, but on 13
November 1859, Ann and Joseph were at Finchley where their first child, Annie Maria,
was baptised at the Church of the Holy Trinity.
They probably returned to London soon after as, in the Spring of 1861, Ann and Joseph
were living at 13 North Street in Marylebone where they rented one or two rooms.
Ann was supplementing Joseph’s income by making slips. In the census of that year,
there is no mention of their daughter, so presumably she had died in infancy. The
following year Ann and Joseph moved a few streets away to 43 Devonshire Street where
they rented one or two rooms. It was here that Ann gave birth to another daughter,
Annie, on 15 October 1862.
On the move
Between 1863 and 1865 Ann and her family moved to Childs Hill to the north west of
the city. Childs Hill is situated on the north west side of Hampstead Heath; in 1865
it was surrounded by small fields and farms, and was closer to the environment in
which Ann and Joseph had grown up in Highgate and Finchley.
Soon after moving to Childs Hill, Ann gave birth to a third daughter, Alice. Emily
followed a couple of years later, until on 2 February 1870, a long-awaited son was
born, named Henry Joseph. Ada followed in about 1874 and William in 1876. By the
time of the 1881 census, the family had moved to 2 Park Row, Temple Fortune, about
a mile north of Childs Hill and to the east of Hendon. Here, Ann gave birth to two
more children: Louisa in 1880, and George in about 1882.
By 1891, Joseph and Ann, with their four youngest children, together with their elder
daughter, Alice, had returned to Childs Hill where they lived at 4 Ebenezer Mews,
a row of small houses not far from the High Street. On 15 September 1899, Joseph
died of senile dementia, exhaustion and heart failure.
After her husband’s death, Ann continued to live at Ebenezer Mews. She was supported
by her children, some of whom lived with her until they married and left home; in
1911, her youngest child, George Frederick Collins, was living with her and working
as a builder’s merchants yardman. Probably soon after the census when George married,
Ann moved to 1 Llanelly Road, Childs Hill. It was here that she died on 26 May 1925
of old age.
