Читать книгу The Fatal Cup: Thomas Griffiths Wainewright and the strange deaths of his relations - John Price Williams - Страница 13

His opinion was much the same as that expressed by defence witnesses at Bow Street Court in London more than 200 years later, when the Magistrate ordered 171 paperback copies to be forfeited under the Obscene Publications Act.

By his second wife, Griffiths had two daughters; the first died as a child, the second in childbirth. This was Ann, pretty and highly-intelligent who had married at the age of 19, Thomas Wainewright of Sloane Street, Chelsea. The marriage is recorded in the registers of Chiswick Parish Church:

Thomas Wainewright, Esquire, of the Parish of St. Luke, Chelsea, in the County of Middlesex, Bachelor, and Ann Griffiths, of the Parish of Chiswick in the same County, Spinster, a Minor, by and with the lawful consent of Ralph Griffiths, Esquire, the natural and lawful father of the said Minor, were married by licence this 13th day of December 1792, by me, James Trebeck A.M., Vicar.

The young couple lived at Chiswick, probably at Linden House with Dr. Griffiths; the mansion was big enough for them all. But he had not approved of the marriage, according to the Dictionary of National Biography, despite giving his consent. Then tragedy; on October 11, 1794, after being married for fewer than two years, Ann died giving birth to a son. Dr Griffiths, who was by then 74, had lost a daughter and gained a grandson on the same day.

He was christened Thomas after his father and Griffiths after his grandfather; his mother Ann was

JOHN PRICE WILLIAMS

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