Arnold Merrick (General)

by amal, Saturday, June 20, 2020, 15:12 (1616 days ago) @ kandi

Hi Kandi.

You are correct when you say that Arnold Garbett Meyrick was also married to Matilda Coxhead. He married her first, and whilst still married to her, he married Anne Wilson. He then married Anne Wilson again after Matilda had died. I assume Matilda was ill as he put her in a workhouse, probably hoping that she would die quite soon, but she still survived for over a year. The workhouse is where she died and was buried in an unmarked grave.

Arnold had 7 children with Matilda. The first they named Arnold. I am not sure what happened to him as I can not find any record, but all the children died young except Margaret who is my 3rd great-grandmother. She is the only child listed on the 1841 census with Matilda, who was working as a (dress?) maker. Margaret married and came to Australia with her husband. Jas. W. Sparks. He wrote a short autobiography at the end of his life which mentions that Margaret's step-mother Anne was quite cruel to her.

I believe Arnold then married Priscilla while Anne was still living. I am not sure what happened to Anne though.

Arnold was also a witness at Matilda's sisters wedding.

I also am of the belief that Arnold was seeing another woman before Anne while still married to Matilda. Her name was Elizabeth. There is no marriage certificate that I can find but they had 3 children, two of them twins. All the children died when they were babies. I don't see anything of Elizabeth after that, but also have not looked around for a while. I have come to the conclusion that this is the same Arnold Merrick married to Matilda, listed as the father of these children, as the address given is not too far from Matilda and Arnold's address. He could have easily scooted between the two behind his wife's back because she was actually pregnant at the time.He was also getting into practice for his next two bigomist acts.

The other thing is he is listed as a servant on the births of the children with Elizabeth. He was also listed as a servant on the births of his children with Matilda.

Arnold was actually a jack of many trades. He came from a very respectable family, but he was a black sheep who went out on his own. I was told he took the Garbett name possibly because he had been a bit of a rogue and was trying to improve his image, or escape from his past, and the Garbett family was very religious.

Hope this helps.