Elizabeth Shuttleworth/Watson

Question

I am wondering if anyone knows why Elizabeth Ann Shuttleworth changed her maiden name to Watson on  the birth registrations after her 7th or 8th Child.

Elizbeth Ann Shuttleworth was born in 1841  in Tasmania to the parents of James Shuttleworth and Ann Tozer, both convicts sent  from England to Tasmania [at separate times]. James and Ann married in 1841 in Tasmainia and had 4 children, Eliabeth Ann, James, Alice and Mary Jane. The whole family came to South Australia.

Elizabeth Ann Shuttleworth married a John Webb and had 13 children.

I have a copy of a death certificate of Elizabeth and John's first child  [John Frederick Webb] and it shows the parents as John Webb and Elizabeth Watson yet on the South Australian births, deaths and marriages site it shows that when John Frederick Webb was born his parents were John Webb and Elizabeth Ann Shuttleworth.Can someone help.

Cheers Ria

Answer 1

Hi Ria,

I don't know either, and would love to find out where 'Watson' came from. She appears to have changed it somewhere between 1867 and 1872, and I suspect it had something to do with her parents continuing life of crime. I think her father was sentenced to 14 years hard labour in 1866, and he is mentioned in the court notices of Adelaide newspapers from 1850.

She was taken in to care at the age of 9. I don't know if this was temporary or permanent, but if it was permanent she may have been fostered and taken a foster parents name. Not sure why she would have waited so long though.

Her mother had a couple of aliases, but not Watson as far as I am aware.

Also, I only have records of 12 children (hopefully I will get them on to the family tree soon). John (1862), George (1863), Arthur (1865), Elizabeth (1867), Mary (1870), Alice (1871), William (1872), Harriet (1876), Robert (1877), Rebecca (1879), Adelaide (1881) and Albert (1884). Can you tell me who I am missing, and how you found them? John and Elizabeth don't seem to have been particularly diligent about birth registrations.

Regards, Joanne