Andrew Grant-Adamson
Ann Jones was a remarkable 19th century woman. But no-one will have heard of her.
Born in Ireland, the daughter of a regimental tailor, she was deserted by her wastrel first husband, built a successful business, went to court to protect her property from the husband, got a divorce and a pre-nuptial agreement before wedding her second husband.
This was all before the Married Women’s Property Acts. Almost certainly, she propelled her second husband, Peter Adamson. The son of a nailmaker (blacksmith), he became a leading citizen of Dundee. After they were married he was elected a town councillor, filling roles including kirkmaster and hospitalmaster and serving as a magistrate.
Like Ann, Peter Adamson “won his way to success” (Dundee Year book obituary), becoming a dealer in jute machinery. He was, according to the obit, “An admirable example of the quiet sagacious, and pawkily humorous type of old Scots merchant.”
While researching family history I paid little attention to Ann, my step great-grandmother. She had no children and sat alone on the family tree. Only a timeline made it obvious that most of her husband’s successes came after his second marriage.
Searches of newspaper archives (easier because women in Scotland retained their maiden names after marriage) first revealed Ann’s petition to the Court of Session (high court) in Edinburgh for protection — from the husband who had deserted her — of her property.
Then she was back in the high court to get her divorce (one of fewer than 70 in Scotland in 1876). This is her story as told to the divorce judge and reported in the Dundee Courier:
The parties were married in 1849, and lived together for seven years afterwards. There were no children of the marriage. They lived very unhappy, on account of the defender’s cruelty and drunkenness. He turned her out of the window one night in her nightdress, and she had to take refuge with her neighbours. He refused to support her, and she had to work in the fields. About 21 years ago the defender said he was going away to America. [Ann Jones] asked him what she was to do in consequence, and he said she could go to h—— and that he didn’t care a d——. He went aways, as she supposed to America….
In fact, he stayed in Scotland but they only encountered each other a few times over the years. The court heard that she got a job serving in the refreshment room at Forfar Station and later in various places in Dundee. She ultimately took a confectioner’s shop in Murraygate in the centre of Dundee. It was successful.
The year after her divorce she married Peter Adamson. Ann Jones died in 1904 at the age of 80 and the pre-nuptial agreement served as her will. It stated that when one partner died all their assets went directly to the survivor. More than £2,000 (about £200,000 now) passed to her husband.
Ann Jones’s story is just one of the building blocks of history being turned up by the explosion in family history research. The challenge is to collect and curate these stories.
Andrew Grant -Adamson is a journalist. He worked for many years as a reporter on regional newspapers and wrote for publications ranging from the Daily Mirror to the Financial Times. He is now retired, having spent the latter part of his career teaching post-graduate journalism students at City University, London, and the University of Westminster.
