Musings of an aging fan

You may have noticed my absence from these pages. Aside from general busyness, I attribute this largely to the fractal complexity of family research, which has meant that every time I felt almost ready to share my latest findings, a new mystery opened up. So, I’m leaning into it a little bit. If all goes well, this will be the first of three posts on a person of whom I possess no image or manuscript papers, whose birth and death are alike mysterious, and who was in fact not a blood relation at all, but who played a central role in the family’s affairs over the three decades or so from the mid-1790s to the mid-1820s. This is Frances, also called Fanny, also called Fanch, who begins life as an O’Neill, then becomes a Butler, and finally a Sarmon.

There are three sets of mysteries I’d like to solve: one surrounds Fanny’s birth; the second the death of Charles Butler, her first husband; and the third the identity of “Daniel”, who may or may not be her son. I’ll do it over three posts.

So, Frances (or Fanny) Juliet O'Neill (or O’Neil) was baptized at St George, Hanover Square, on 17 March 1779. The figure on the right, which records the date of her birth, was clearly also initially written as a 17, but then altered to look like a 12. Whether that was just a slip of the pen, who knows? Either way, the parents are listed as “Clotworthy & Frances Oneile.”



The name Clotworthy O’Neill sounds pretty distinctive, and indeed it’s easy to find reference to a minor Irish aristocrat of that name from Shane Castle in County Antrim, who was born in 1688 and who died around 1749 in Bath, where he is apparently buried in the Abbey. So far, I’ve not been able to find any direct reference to his having children, but in 1763 another Clotworthy O’Neill – presumably his son or other close relative – pops up nearby in Bristol, where he marries a West Country heiress called Mary Arundell (1739-1793). A few years later, in 1767, they have a daughter, Phillis, who appears to be their only (legitimate) child. In due course Phillis marries a Clifton apothecary, William Mounier Yeo (1761-1809), “representative of the ancient and family of that name, seated at Huish, in the county of Devon.” Phillis and William live a prosperous life in Clifton and Hotwells, where the thriving spas of that era must have made the life of a high-class apothecary very comfortable, and they have a numerous children, including one delightfully called Beaple. William Yeo dies in 1809 and Phillis lives on in Clifton until her own death in 1846, aged 79.

Now, why do I think that the Clotworthy O’Neil who appears on Fanny’s baptismal record in London’s Hanover Square is connected to the Clotworthy O’Neil who became the father of Phillis in Clifton, Bristol, 12 years earlier?

The main reason, apart from Clotworthy’s distinctive name, is that in later life Fanny is a visitor to “Mrs Yeo” in Clifton, from as early at 1798 to as late as 1821. There is clearly some connection: either they are half-sisters (if their father is the same Clotworthy) or perhaps more distant relatives (if there are multiple Clotworthys).

In any case, Fanny’s mother, recorded as “Frances Oneile”, is clearly not Mary Arundell. There are no doubt other possible interpretations, but the most obvious inference is that Fanny is Clotworthy’s illegitimate daughter.

Between her birth in 1779 and 1798 I have no information on her at all. However, in the latter year, she pops up in the Butler household in 6, Cheyne Walk, where she is apparently already a fixture. We first glimpse her in this letter from Weeden I’s third son, Charles, to his elder brother, George, who is in Prussia undertaking a Grand Tour of sorts. The scene is the Butler dinner table, and the dramatis personae are Weeden I, his wife Anne Giberne, his eldest son Weeden II, his daughter, Harriot, Charles himself, and … Fanny:

Now and then you have been thought of but generally in this Case, to reassure has been the chief Object till fond Anxiety had partly gained the Ascendancy, when paternal Affection always closed the Scene with some short Ejaculation for your Safety and Welfare. My Father generally began with “I think he might have written, since his last.” “There has certainly been Time enough,” rejoin’d my Mother. “Oh, there’s no knowing,” replied Weeden. “You can’t possibly tell if he’s hurried, or were likely so & so, & may be this & that,” with a thousand different Conjectures that he has the knack of being capable of forming. “Yes, but my dear,” retorts my honour’d Father, “it is now so many days since he has given us a single line,“ for he has the Dates as pat and regular as a four Hours Watch. “I should not mind, if he was only just to say, I’m well”; and then he chalks it out, as clear and as easy as he would a penny post Letter. I generally try in these Cases to slip in a Word edgeways, and desire him to recollect that in War Time, the opportunities are not as frequent, and to wait the Event of the next Mail. “Ah! Well! Well! I only hope he’s in perfect Health, but it’s strange I have not a Word; however, I’ll not think of him.” This concludes the discourse about your Worship whenever anyone happens to start a Clue for your Enquiry, and Tranquility is for a while restor’d. On these Occasions, Harriet and Fanny generally remain mute, thinking I suppose that the least said, as the whole can only be Conjecture, is the best.

It is also in this letter that we first hear of Fanny visiting Mrs Yeo:

Fanny is return’d from Mr Yeo’s of Clifton, which is tout près, and I never witnessed a more favorable Alteration than she brings from thence. She is grown quite stout, looks exceeding well, us’d to get up regularly at or before six …, and in general without experiencing Fatigue, from the Exercise.

At this point Fanny is just nineteen. There’s no indication that she and Charles are yet an item, but a few years later, in April 1803, another letter from Charles (this time to Weeden II) leaves no doubt. This one is written just a few weeks after Anne Giberne’s death, and Fanny has clearly played a key part in looking after the stricken Weeden I – a task more necessary because Harriet has (as related in an earlier entry) had something of a hysterical fit:

When I think of Fanny I am in Raptures, when I hear from her, I am overjoyed and almost unhappy at the ideas of leaving her. When I yesterday saw her, I was particularly astonish’d at her Deportment & Conduct throughout the different trying scenes she has almost latterly daily encountered

“No one so capable as Fanny!” is the Austenian mot juste, I think. Indeed, if there’s an Austen book that her story reminds me of, it’s definitely Persuasion. This will become clearer in the second part of her story, though in this first part there’s also a slice of Mansfield Park, with Charles in the role of Edmund.

Anyway, on 3rd October 1804 Charles and Fanny are married in St Luke’s Church, their local church in Chelsea. The marriage is performed by Weeden I, and Weeden II and Harriot are the witnesses, along with the church’s curate. There are no witnesses from the O’Neil side of the family.

At this point, my main questions are:

1) What is the secret of Fanny’s parentage? Does she share a father with Mrs Yeo? Who was her mother?
2) When, and how did she come to be living in the Butler household? And how did she spend her childhood before that?

The story of Charles and Fanny, but especially of Fanny, is not yet half done, but for now let us leave them in connubial bliss.