Gerald Mainwaring (1855)

Born 1855 in Whitmore, Staffordshire, England, United Kingdom

Ancestors

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Anne Young [send private message]

Biography

This profile is part of the Whitmore, Staffordshire One Place Study.

Gerald Mainwaring born 1855 was the sixth of ten children of the Reverend Charles Henry Mainwaring (1819 – 1878) and his wife Jane née Delves-Broughton (1824 – 1873). Gerald Mainwaring, son of Charles H and Jane, was baptised on 29 December 1855 in Whitmore, St Mary & All Saints, Staffordshire, England.^[1]

In 1861 Gerald aged 6 was living at Whitmore rectory with his father, nine siblings and a governess, cook, three housemaids and another female servant. His mother was away from home.^[2]

In 1871 at the time of the census, Gerald and his brother Cecil were at Rossall College or Northern Church of England School near Thornton, Lancashire.^[3]

In 1879, Gerald Mainwaring, just 24 years old, was tried and found guilty of murder. The case, widely reported, caused a sensation.

From the mid-1870s Mainwaring had lived in Canada, farming in Manitoba. In April 1879 he returned to England to attend the wedding of his sister Julia. A few months later, due to return to Canada, he went on a spree in Derby. He got drunk, and driving a trap with a ‘female companion’ too fast through the town, was pulled over by the police. When they began a search of his lady friend, Mainwaring fired several shots from a revolver, wounding two policemen, one fatally: Joseph Moss (1851-1879).

Found guilty of murder, he was sentenced to hang. It transpired, however, that the jury, unable to agree, had drawn a ballot to decide Mainwaring’s fate. There was an appeal to the Home Secretary and his sentence was commuted to penal servitude for life.

On the 1881 and 1891 censuses Gerald Mainwaring was recorded as a prisoner at Her Majesty’s Prison at Chatham Kent. The prison closed in the 1890s.

On 16 May 1894 Gerald was discharged from Portland Prison. The Habitual Criminal Register of 1894 describes him as of fair complexion, with brown hair, grey eyes, 5 foot 7¼ inches tall. He had a large cut to the back of his head, a cut on his second right finger, a tattoo mark outside wrist and stab ribs, dot inside left forearm, anchor outside wrist and two moles near armpit. His destination on discharge was London.^[4]

There seems to be no record of Gerald Mainwaring on the 1901 census or in the death records. Nor is there any newspaper mention of him. The family history compiled in the 1930s states he died in America and does not specify a death date.^[5]

Sources

1. ↑ Baptism: "Staffordshire Baptisms"
   Reference: D3332/1/3; Page: 87
   FindMyPast Image - FindMyPast Transcription (subscription required, accessed 30 November 2023)
   Gerald Mainwaring baptism on 29 Dec 1855, son of Charles H & Jane, in Whitmore, St Mary & All Saints, Staffordshire, England.
2. ↑ 1861 census Class: RG 9; Piece: 1915; Folio: 4; Page: 2; GSU roll: 542886
3. ↑ 1871 census Class: RG10; Piece: 4224; Folio: 149; Page: 11; GSU roll: 846962.
4. ↑ Habitual Criminals Register 1894 description of Gerald Mainwaring Series MEPO6 Piece number 6 Retrieved from FindMyPast (subscription $)
5. ↑ The Mainwarings of Whitmore and Biddulph in the County of Stafford. An account of the family, and its connections by marriage and descent; with special reference to the Manor of Whitmore. J.G. Cavenagh-Mainwaring, about 1935.

See also:

• Seddon, Peter. "Monumental Musings: The Murder of a Policeman in Victorian Derby." Great British Life, 26 Oct. 2017, https://www.greatbritishlife.co.uk/homes-and-gardens/places-to-live/22631384.monumental-musings-murder-policeman-victorian-derby/
• Young, Anne. "Gerald Mainwaring (1854 – ? )." Anne's Family History, 21 Jul. 2013, https://anneyoungau.wordpress.com/2013/07/21/gerald-mainwaring-1854/.
• Young, Anne. "U is for Unknown Fate of Gerald Mainwaring." Anne's Family History, 23 Apr. 2020, https://anneyoungau.wordpress.com/2020/04/24/u-is-for-unknown-fate/