Hello Kim and Penny
I’m truly delighted to read your messages!
It sounds as though you have done a lot of work on Morgan, and that you at least, Penny (from your list of surname interests) are related to him through the same Beaney route as myself.
You will probably already know all or most of what’s below, but I set it out nevertheless in case it’s of any interest.
Morgan David is one of my great great great grandfathers. I’m descended from Harriet, the fifth (so far as I can tell) child of his second wife. Harriet was christened in Frindsbury in 1819 and died (rather spectacularly) at Leeds, near Maidstone in Kent on 24.09.1863.
I know (I think) that Morgan’s first wife was a Mary, and that they had a child, presumably their first son, in December 1797, and baptised Morgan David at Dartford in Kent in January 1798. Thereafter Mary died at a time and place unknown to me.
Morgan then married an Elizabeth Kinkell in Chalk near Gravesend in Kent on 07.06.1804. I know (I think) that Morgan and Elizabeth had one child - Richard - christened in 1805 in Bexley, Kent, and then five more, including Harriet, baptised in Frindsbury between 1812 and 1821. Morgan died and was buried at Frindsbury in 1821. I haven’t managed to find out whether Elizabeth moved and/or remarried and/or died soon thereafter.
Where it is mentioned (in one of his children’s marriage record), Morgan’s occupation is given as ‘basket-maker’, and that’s a calling typical of the travelling folk in the south-east. This is reinforced by the nature of the family that Harriet married into - the Beaneys - who were likewise semi-itinerant, moving around Kent from farm to farm during the late summer harvests. At least one other David family lived in Frindsbury at the same time as Morgan and Elizabeth’s. They were also basket-makers and it seems likely that they were related to Morgan.
As regards Morgan’s children, I have no information about the first four: Morgan (ch1797), Richard (ch1805), Mary Ann (ch1812), or Matilda (ch1814).
The fifth, Hannah (ch1816), married a James Richardson in Cuxton in Kent in 1841, is with him there in the 1841 census, and is also with him in Strood, Strood, Frindsbury and Frindsbury in the 1851, 1861, 1871 and 1881 censuses respectively. She died in 1885 and was buried in Frindsbury, from the Union Work-house.
The sixth, Harriet (ch1819), my great great grandmother, married Henry William Beaney in Hunton, Kent in 1844, had 8 children with him between 1845 and 1859, and, as noted above, died in 1863. Her eldest son's - Henry William's - eldest child, Ann Louise (Annie), was my grandmother.
The seventh and last, Stephen (ch1821), married a Sarah Newnham in Chatham, Kent in 1844. He is with her, in Frindsbury, in the 1851 census, but by the 1861 census he has left her (she is recorded therein as a ‘deserted wife’). In 1871, 1881 and 1891 he is in Gillingham, Rochester and Strood respectively, latterly in the Union Work-house also, and in each case recorded as a ‘widower’. He died in 1893.
As regards Morgan’s antecedents, I really know nothing more than can be gained by looking at the IGI: that is, that a son, Morgan David, of Elias David and his wife Alice was christened in Egerton, near Ashford in Kent on 27.11.1726, and that a Morgan David (perhaps this Morgan David) married an Ann in Egerton about 1750. Whether these events are related to the Morgan David who turns up successively in Dartford in 1797-1798, Chalk in 1804, Bexley in 1805 and Frindsbury from 1812 onwards is not clear to me. A Morgan David marries a Mary Wallis (according to IGI) on 26.01.1789, but whether this is ‘our’ Morgan’s first marriage is also unclear. Both of you say that he was born in 1756: I’d really like to know where that comes from.
As I say, you probably know all/most of the above already, but if either of you want back-up detail of any aspect, let me know. You will gather that I also know a little about the elusive Beaneys - but then, so, probably, do you!
I’d be delighted if you can add to, comment on or correct anything here, to receive any thoughts or information about the Davids or Beaneys generally, or just to hear from you!
Very best wishes to you both from Scotland,
Bill