Episode synopsis:
Danny Dyer was born in 1977 in the Custom House area of the East End of London, and now lives in Essex with his family. His parents split up when he was young, and he was brought up mostly by his mother.
Danny met up with his father Tony Dyer who told him a bit about his family. Tony's parents were John Dyer and Joyce Rudd. Joyce's mother, Mary Ann Wallace, died of kidney failure when Joyce was 9, and she was brought up by her grandmother Mary Ann Buttivant and aunt Sylvia Wallace.
Tony showed Danny a photo of Mary Ann Buttivant's parents Albert and Ann Buttivant, born 1851, who he said ran a workhouse in the East End.
Danny met a researcher to find out more about Mary Ann Buttivant and her parents. Mile End workhouse records from 1878 show that baby Mary Ann and her mother Ann were admitted as paupers, with many further admission and discharge records for the Buttivant family including Mary Ann's sisters Eliza and Emma, but not many records of Albert. Danny visited the old workhouse building which now houses Mile End Hospital, and was advised to look for records of Mary Ann Buttivant in the criminal records. These showed that in 1895, as a 17-year-old servant, she had been bailed at the police court charged that "Having been delivered of a child [she] did, by secret disposition of the dead body, endeavour to conceal the birth thereof." Mary Ann pleaded guilty. Danny was shown some further documents at Bishopsgate Institute: the indictment which said that Mary Ann had given birth to a female child on the 24th Feb, and the baby's death certificate which said that she was found dead, cause of death haemorrhage from the umbilical cord due to lack of medical attention at birth. Age at death 2 minutes. Mary Ann received the equivalent of a suspended sentence.
Mary Ann went on to marry and have ten more children, including the youngest, Sylvia, who is now 92 and lives in Poplar in East London, with her daughter Iris. Danny went to see them and told them the story of Mary Ann's first baby, which they had never heard before. They said that Mary Ann delivered many babies for local women in later life, as a sort of unqualified midwife, although she would leave the cutting of the cord for the nurse to do. They said that Albert and Ann died when Sylvia was about 9, and that the family story was that Albert came from a rich French family whose name was Boutivant.
Danny ordered Albert's birth certificate and it said that he was born on the 4th Nov 1851 at Church Lane, Whitechapel. His parents were Charles Buttivant, commercial clerk, and Hannah Sarah Wing. Danny went to see a genealogist who had done the Buttivant family tree for him, going back from Charles's father James Buttivant (she didn't find a French connection there) and Charles's mother Ann Gosnold, who was descended from Robert Gosnold of Suffolk, 1611-1658, Danny's 10xg-grandfather. Robert Gosnold's baptism record said that his father, also Robert Gosnold, was an armiger, i.e. had a coat of arms, which Danny was shown.
Danny went to Oxford to meet a Civil War historian who told him about Robert Gosnold jr's part in the Civil War, on the Royalists' side to the end. He then went to the Gosnolds' family seat, Otley Hall at Otley in Suffolk, where a local historian showed him a document saying that Robert was fined £600 in 1646 soon after the war ended. After Robert's death, his heirs had to sell the land.
Robert jr's mother was Anne Tollemache. Danny went to meet the current Lord Tollemache at Helmingham Hall, and they went to Helmingham Church to look at the Tollmache family monuments including those of Anne's father Lionel Tollemache and his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. Lionel's memorial inscription said that his wife, Anne's mother, was "Lord Cromwell's daughter", i.e. Catherine Cromwell, the great-granddaughter of Thomas Cromwell, making Thomas Cromwell Danny's 15xg-grandfather.
Danny went to Hampton Court Palace to find out more about Thomas Cromwell. Thomas was born about 1485 in Putney, where his father, Walter Cromwell, was a blacksmith and brewer. Thomas went on to become King Henry VIII's right-hand man and was made Earl of Essex. Danny was shown Thomas's coat of arms.
He then went to the Tower of London where Thomas was brought on charges of treason and heresy and was executed in 1540. Danny was told that Thomas's son Gregory Cromwell married Elizabeth Seymour, the sister of Jane Seymour, and that Gregory and Elizabeth's eldest son Henry Cromwell, named after Henry VIII, was Danny's direct ancestor.
He then went to Westminster Abbey to find out about the Seymour family, and was shown a family tree tracing them back to the Plantagenets, with King Edward III at the top of the tree, Danny's 22xg-grandfather. Danny looked at Edward's tomb, and then went home to Essex to show the family tree to his family.
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