Ann Allaway Cowmeadow 1839-1911

Ann was the illegitimate daughter of Mary Ann Cowmeadow. She has no connection to Tyler's terrace. She was researched mainly to eliminate her from having anything to do with the terrace. But her life became a point of interest and so is included here.

Ann was difficult to follow due to her varying use of her name.  She was born Ann Allaway Cowmeadow but babtised as Mary Anne. At different times she used the name Annie, Mary Ann or Marianne and used Allaway as a surname instead of Cowmeadow. On her birth certificate, no father is recorded though the name Stephen is recorded as her father in her baptism record. As it wasn't unusual to use a surname of one of the parents as a second name for a child, the obvious conclusion was her father was Stephen Allaway and a search of that name found just such a person working at the nearby iron works. The assumption, therefore, is that Stephen used the services of the Victoria Hotel, met Mary Ann and fathered her child.

Ann is recorded in the 1841 census, aged 2, as living at the Victoria Hotel but not in any later census records. She was eventually found living in Stroud in 1851, as a scholar, using the name Annie Allaway. She is living with a piano tuner and his two daughters. Two doors away is a girl's school which it might be assumed Ann was attending. The circumstances around Ann, seemingly, being sent away to school may never be known but it could be that her father Stephen, who, by now, was married with other children, paid for her to be sent away for his convenience. The fact Ann was using the surname Allaway might support this.

In 1861 Ann is working in London as a milliner using the name Marianne Cowmeadow. In 1866 she married Edwin Ridler from Lydney. On her marriage certificate she uses the name Mary Ann Cowmeadow. The same certificate confirms the name of her father and shows him as an Ironmaster leaving no doubt as to his identity.

In 1871 Ann, still using the name Mary Ann, is living with Edwin, three children and a servant, in Lydney. Edwin is a businessman though it's not clear exactly what he did. By 1881 the family are living in Cinderford, close to Tyler's Terrace, now with six children. Edwin is recorded as being an accountant, possible at the iron works.

If Edwin did work at the iron works, he may have been aware of its coming decline and, perhaps, that was the reason in 1883 the whole family emigrated to Canada.

In the 1891 Canadian census, the family are living in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba where they continued to live until Ann's death in 1911. 

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