Edwin Francis Pennell is my wife’s Great Grandfather.

Some incidents from his life made me think about age and, specifically, your date of birth. In the twenty first century we are regularly asked for our date of birth to help the hearer identify us. This may be at the doctor’s surgery, in the bank or online. In the supermarket you may even have a card to confirm you are ‘over 18’ to allow you to purchase certain restricted items. When Edwin was born the age of majority, when you were allowed to do many things without parental consent, was still twenty one. It was not reduced to eighteen until nineteen seventy.

The above copy of Edwin’s birth certificate shows that he was born on 22 October 1853, the son of Thomas and Louisa Pennell, formerly Louisa Eades, and was born at his parents home, 9 Mott Street in Birmingham. Edwin was the youngest of their six children.

The next certificate you can see below is that of his marriage to Emily Hepburn on 25 December 1872. Weddings on Christmas Day were quite common at that time as it was the easiest date to ensure that friends and family could be in attendance and were not having to work.

If we look at bit more closely it shows that marriage took place when Edwin was only nineteen although the certificate shows that he declared his age as twenty one, as did Emily. You will see from the next document that Emily was also likely to have been under twenty one. Both of their fathers were alive at this time and one of Edwin’s older brothers was a witness at the wedding, George Frederick Pennell. When they married Edwin was a Chandelier Maker and Emily a Jeweller’s Polisher.

Sadly their marriage only lasted just over one hundred days and Emily died on 13 April 1873. Emily died from Phthisis (pronounced TIE-sis) which is a Greek word simply meaning ‘wasted away’. It is likely to have been as a result of Tuberculosis.

The death certificate also shows Emily as aged twenty, rather than the twenty one on her marriage certificate just a few months earlier.

Sixteen months later Edwin married Mary Upton. This time he declares his age as twenty four when, in fact, he is still a couple of months away from his twenty first birthday.

We should note that his father, Thomas, is noted as ‘deceased’ on this certificate and Mary’s father is a Licensed Victualler. Although at this time Mary’s father, William, was living in Great Hampton Street in Birmingham, he had been the licensee at The Black Horse in Henley in Arden. Mary was born in Ullenhall near Henley in Arden.

Edwin and Mary went on to have six children between 1875 and 1884, starting and finishing their offspring with boys with four girls in between, Edwin, Beatrice, Rachel, Emily, Mary and Herbert.

Edwin died in 1935.