James Casemore and Eliza Embury both lived in Egham in 1851; courtesy of Egham Museum Trust
The Casemore family of Bucks, Northants and London
The connection
Liz is descended from the Casemores via the Albrows, her mother’s maternal line.
The name
Casemore is probably from a place name. Cashmoor in Dorset is the most likely contender.
In 1841 7-year-old Eliza Embury was living in Bagnigge Wells Road, London, a fading place of entertainment known for prostitution; image courtesy of the trustees of the British Museum
The church at Aston Clinton, the village where the Casemore family was concentrated © Nigel Cox, Creative Commons
Odds and ends
John Casemore b1831 was a sawyer who probably worked in Salcey Forest, east of the village of Hartwell, Northants, which was owned by the Duke of Grafton.
John’s son James Ebenezer literally married the girl next door. In 1851 he was living in Egham, Surrey, next to 17-year-old laundress Eliza Embury.
Highlights
The village of Aston Clinton is central to the Casemore story. For a time we had trouble tying in our family but then noticed that John b1831 and living in Hartwell gave Aston Clinton as his birthplace on the 1851 census.
Eliza Casemore nee Embery is 28 in the 1861 census and living with husband James Ebenezer and her children John, 1, and Eliza, four weeks, in Tower Hamlets, London. Her mother Elizabeth Embury is a visitor, and this is a clue to an unfolding tragedy. Within the month Eliza Sr is dead; she probably suffered complications from childbirth.