27 March 2007: Louisa Dempsey

I've mentioned previously in passing here my great-great grandmother Louisa Dempsey, about whom I know almost nothing except that she married my great-great grandfather John Torr, the Liverpool MP, and predeceased him, dying in 1868. Many thanks therefore to Patrick Glencross who has just sent me the following:

"I'm happy to fill you in on something of the history of Louisa Dempsey whose sister Frances was my great great grandmother on my mother's side

Parents of Louisa were James Dempsey and Ann Blundell. They were married at St George's in Liverpool on 10th January 1821. James Dempsey was a timber merchant in the firm of Dempsey and Pickard in Greenland Street, Liverpool and he is listed in the Gore's directories for 1825, 1827 and 1829.

Ann Blundell was born in c1799 and the last record I have come across of her is the 1861 census when she was aged 63, living at Carlet Cottage, Eastham, Cheshire and described as a proprietor of houses. She was visited at this time by her elder sister Margaret Blundell who was then aged 64.

The anecdotal account is that the Dempsey family emanated from Ireland with the daughters of James and Ann (including Louisa) known as 'the Dempsey beauties'.

The siblings of Louisa - as far as I have discovered - were:
(a) Arthur Dempsey 1824-1907 - timber broker
he was the grandfather of General Sir Miles Dempsey of WWII notoriety
(b) Henry Dermot Dempsey b 1825 - timber broker (not traced beyond 1861)
(c) Anne Jane Dempsey b 1827 - married Thomas Hunter Holderness, shipowner, and they were living at 11 Abercrombie Square, Liverpool at the time of the 1861 census. Anne was still living at the time of the 1901 census. My mother has a photo of her somewhere in the family albums.
(d) Frances Gertrude Dempsey 1831-1922 - husband William Tarbet, commission merchant in Liverpool. William's father, also William, lived at 9 Abercrombie Square
(e) Maria Dempsey b 1836 - married a John M Smith, a banker, and they were living in Leeds by 1861. I can't trace either of them or any of their four children after the 1871 census which suggests to me that they may have emigrated.

Clear impression gathered from the details of the Dempsey/ Holderness/ Tarbet families in the 19th C being a close-knit coterie of the Liverpool merchant classes - the genealogy sometimes made confusing by the tendency to marry cousins, whether first cousins or cousins by marriage."