For almost 200 years there had been a doctor resident in Bow. I was the twenty-ninth
This is our story
THE MEDICAL GENTLEMEN OF BOW
The family of William Robert Warren, Surgeon of Bow:
Emma Warren, the Bussells and Berbice
William Warren’s wife Emma was born Emma Bartlett de Mey in about 1814 in Berbice, then part of British Guyana in South America. Her mother was Frances Bartlett Bussell of Exeter, daughter of Alderman John Bussell. Emma’s father was John James de Mey. According to the records of the Church of All Hallows on the Walls in Exeter her parents were married there on 14th September 1811, by licence. The marriage licence had been obtained the previous day by Frances’s older brother John, an Exeter solicitor (who was later to marry de Mey’s daughter from a previous marriage). Mr de Mey was not present at the licence application which was made by John Bussell alone.
The bridegroom claimed to be John James de Mey esquire of Alphington (a parish in the south of Exeter). His real name was Jan Jacob de Mey, a Dutch resident of the British colony of Berbice. (The signature on his marriage record is written “de Meij” in the Dutch style.)
After the wedding JJ de Mey and his new wife returned to Berbice. There they had two daughters, born between 1814 and 1816, named Emma Bartlett Bussell and Frances Delia. As children even they owned slaves, called James and Betty, according to an 1817 Slave Register.
But by 1819 the girls’ parents had both died. The Kortberaad coffee estate, which the girls inherited, was put up for auction and they were sent back to Exeter with their older half-sister Christina. They would probably have lived with the Bussells or the Bartletts.
Her sister, Frances Delia de Mey, never married and lived in Barnstaple, North Devon until her death in 1902. Christina Bussell lived to the age of 82. She died in Topsham in 1882. Her husband John, the solicitor had died 25 years earlier.
The Bussells of Exeter and Honeylands
Emma’s English grandparents were John Bussell and Mary Bartlett. John Bussell had been a grocer who rose to be mayor of Exeter in 1782 and who acquired properties in Exeter and Alphington. The Bartlett family had made their fortune as sergemakers.
John Bussell’s son (Emma’s uncle, also called John) was a wealthy solicitor and had dealt with the conveyancing of “Honeylands”, the Bartlett family estate in Whipton to the East of Exeter. In about 1828 he bought part of the estate where he built himself a mansion which is still called Honeylands.
In 1822 John Bussell married Christina Susanna Jacoba de Mey, the half-sister of Emma his niece, when she was just 21 and he was 40. She too was born in Berbice, the daughter of Jan Jacob de Mey and his first wife, Henriette Buse. Christina went on to have 9 children. The family lived at Honeylands, and Emma his niece was living there at the time of her marriage in 1841.
In fact John Bussell married Christina de Mey twice, both times in St Mary Steps Church, Exeter. The first ceremony was on 19th January 1822. They were married by his cousin, Rev Edward Bartlett (1796-1857) with the clergyman’s father, Edward Bartlett, and Esther Bussell as witnesses. The licence had been obtained on the previous day by John Bussell and Edward Bartlett senior. John Bussell and Christina were both described as residing in St Mary’s Steps, whereas they in fact lived in Allhallows on the Walls, which at that time did not have a parish church.
The second ceremony took place six months later on 15 June. By now Christina was about six months pregnant. (Their first child was baptised on 15 September 1822.) This time they were married by the rector, and the witnesses were another of John’s sisters, Harriet Barrington, and R Mayne, probably their servant. The licence had been applied for that same day by John Bussell and William Blackmore. They were correctly described as being resident in Allhallows on the Walls parish. Christina signed her name as “de Mey alias Bussell”. This time there were no announcements.
The first ceremony was invalid for some reason. Was Christina under age? She probably turned 21 sometime in 1822.
John Bussell was also a building speculator, but ran into financial difficulties in about 1849 and Honeylands and its contents had to be sold. During the 1850’s James Sanders, an exporter of Hides and Valonia lived there. He had been a neighbour of the Warrens in Bow, where his father, James Lee Sanders, owned the Tannery. A subsequent owner donated the building to the City Council for use as a children’s Tuberculosis sanatorium. It later became a residential centre for handicapped children, owned by the NHS, but is currently empty.
JJ De Mey and Slavery in Berbice
Jan Jacob de Mey owned the Kortberaad Plantation on the East Bank of the River Berbice, seven miles from New Amsterdam, the capital of Berbice. The plantation had an area about 1,000 acres, and in 1819 had 80,000 productive coffee trees and 50 acres of plantains. He also owned slaves of African origin – “about 126 in number, viz. 53 men, 29 women, 23 boys, 21 girls, and are an improving gang”. They were housed in a single roomed barn called a “logie” 120 by 28 feet. (In 1815 there were about 500 white people and 25,810 registered slaves in Berbice where in 1829 slaves had an average value of £100 at auction. Slavery was not abolished until 1833.) Here is a notice JJ de Mey put in the “Essequebo and Demerary Gazette” of January 25 1806:
Run away on Monday, the 6th instant, from the Plantation Korte Beraad,
Berbice, a House Negro, named Peter, of the Mamonie nation. He is short
and thick, a little pitted with the small pox, speaks Berbice Creole, Surinam,
and bad English and is a good hair dresser. When he absented himself, he
had on a grey jacket, with yellow buttons. He has been since seen at
Mahaica, Whoever will give any information concerning him, that may lead to
his apprehension, shall be handsomely rewarded. It is requested that nobody
will employ or harbour the said Negro, and that no Captain will attempt to
take him out of the Country. If any person or persons should be found doing
so, after this public notice, the law will be put in force against him or them
with the utmost rigour.
Berbice, Jan. 14, 1806. J. J. de Mey.
N.B. Should the above Negro be apprehended near this Settlement, the
offered reward will be paid to whoever will bring him to the Office of this
Paper.
By 1819 the girls’ parents had both died. The coffee estate was put up for auction and they were sent back to Exeter with their older half-sister Christina.
Emma married William Warren in Heavitree Exeter in 1841. From 1844 to 1868 he was a doctor in Bow, living at Winsor House on the main street. They had ten children, although only three survived to adulthood.
In 1856 Emma Warren died aged 42 of scarlet fever. There is a memorial window dating from 1868 in the church in Bow, where she was buried.
Link to more on the Bussells of Exeter Dr William Warren and his family
