On 31st August 1784 the register of St Michael's Church at Cumnor recorded the marriage of Samuel Lambourne to Mary Jeffs. Much later a 'lady' was to recall that both had associations with 'travelling' families, though there had been Lambournes resident in Cumnor for a hundred years and his son Samuel became a farmer in Leys Road. Mary Jeffs had roots in Appleton.
James was the second son and fifth child born to Samuel and Mary. He was born in 1794 and, like the other children, was baptised in Cumnor. He grew up accustomed to travelling for his father was a carrier. James became known in the area, it is said, as 'Gipsy Jim'. It was while James was doing business at Warwick races that he met a maiden 'of fine slim form, tall figure, brunette countenance and hazel eyes, piercingly moving beneath her stylish black Beaver, and better than all, possessing a good temper'. This ravishing young girl with whom James soon fell in love was Sineta Smith, a gipsy seller of sundry articles. Her mother was called 'Prettybody Smith'. Sineta seems to have been born at Curraple in Italy.
James and Sineta were married in the summer of 1816 at Shipston-on- Stour near Stratford and their first child, a daughter, born at Tubney, was baptised on 2nd October 1817 at Cumnor. She was named Sineta after her mother. Though they maintained family links with Cumnor, James and Sineta took a horse and caravan as their home, making their living from horse-dealing at fairs. They were not at Cumnor when the 1821 census was taken. Then, Samuel Lambourne, James's father, was still working as a carrier, living in Abingdon Road in a cottage that was next to the vicarage. His brother Richard, known as 'Poacher Dick', had married Elizabeth Barson, a widow, and lived with her, her four children and their son Richard at the farmstead next to the old 'Vine', opposite the church. His brother Samuel, a farm labourer but later a farmer, was living with his wife Mary and day-old son, lodgers in the home of Thomas Neale in Abingdon Road.
Not long afterwards, with a growing family and with profits from his horse-dealing to invest, James and Sineta decided to build a home as their base. Their search led them to a plot of land offered for sale by a farmer. It lay by the highway to Banbury, just north of Oxford, 'the pleasantest place in all England', James said, "nay, in the whole world'. James named his new home 'Somers Town', the spelling excusable for James did not claim to be a man of letters. He paid one Costar 4s 6d to paint a board with the name and the information 'J.Lambourne. Horse Dealer'.
The home was a modest cottage, 'encircled with a barrier of long upright faggots, fixed close together, as an additional shelter from the inclemency of the weather'. After a few years James was able to add a brick and sash front to his premises. The building no longer exists but stood immediately north of what is now the 'Dew Drop Inn'. These events were recorded by his new neighbour, J.Badcock, who in 1832 wrote his 'Origin, history and description of Sumrnertown'. The newly erected village, he stated, was founded by 'Mr James larnbourne', a native of Cumnor. It seems that James actually claimed to be a descendant of the (fictional) character Mike Lambourne in Scott's best- seller 'Kenilworth'. 'James is a sober, moderate man in drinking,' Badcock observed. He was light, firm-built, 5 feet 4 inches tall, round as a baker's rolling pin. Although his horse-dealing led to a number of court appearances, James was often the innocent party. He was sufficiently well-off to ernploy a servant.
One incident revealed the persistent, unforgiving nature of his wife when roused. A servant, John Light, absconded with James's watches and other valuables. Sineta set off in pursuit of the thief. She reached Bristol but without success and it was on the return journey that she recognised her quarry on the road and had him arrested by two local constables. Light was brought back to Oxford for trial and was convicted, being sentenced to transportation for life.
Meanwhile their daughter Sineta was growing into maturity with all the startling good looks of her mother. She was perhaps the Zulieka Dobson of her time for she turned many students' heads. But there was scandalised gossip in city and university and beyond when she became engaged to and married, in 1839, the Hon. Charles Cavendish-Bentinck, a nephew of Lord Portland. The young gentleman was then completing his second year at Christ Church, the most aristocratic of colleges. It was noted that 'the cares of married life with a Gypsy appear to have retarded his studies' but Charles did manage to graduate.
There is an intriguing entry in the 1841 Cumnor Census in this period. While James's brother Samuel was tenant of Leys Farm, the nearby cottage household of Isaac Drewett, who had married James's sister Mary, contained one Sineta Lambourne, age 20. The census did not record her relationship to Isaac Drewett.
The Cavendish-Bentincks moved to Ampthill, near Bedford, in 1845. Charles had been offered the living there. No doubt the parishioners joined in the speculation as to whether a gypsy girl might be elevated to the Peerage. Sineta, however, died in 1850, age 32, her only child dying young. 'She paid dearly for her exaltation', E.Winstedt wrote in his account for the Gypsy Lore Journal, 'she was enamelled to her waist'. The enamel was a cosmetic cream to whiten her skin. The presence of mercury and white lead in many such concoctions may explain her early death, a victim of class prejudice. Her death certificate mentions 'convulsions'.
The Cumnor parish register lists the burial of James in 1841, age 49. He died in London. His mother-in- law Prettybody Smith was often seen begging at Marsh Gibbon and was considered by some villagers to be a witch. But what happened to Sineta, James's widow? Two correspondents (both with Lambourne ancestry) enable me to update the story.
James died on January 6th, 1841, age 47, of 'palsy', in Bethnal Green Asylum (which served as the local hospital). His widow lived on at their London address and died at Greys Inn Home, 87 Euston Road on 23rd January 1871, aged 75. Charles Cavendish-Bentinck later married Caroline Louise Burnaby; their daughter Nina Cecilia, married Claude George Bowes-Lyon and their daughter Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon married George Albert Windsor, who became George VI !
It is an interesting tale. In one short period a native of Cumnor founded a new Oxford suburb and his daughter was involved in a romance which shocked the nobility - and had she not died young, the history of our Royal Family would be very different.
John HansonCumnor parish registers
Census papers 1821 and 1841
Journal of Gypsy Lore Society vol.23 1944; article by E.Winstedt
'Origin,history and description of Surnmertown' , J.Badcock 1832
Update: Mrs Judy McCulloch and Mrs Heather Adams.
* I am indebted to Peggy lnman for providing the original reference in 'Berkshire Notes and Queries',Vol.1, Part Ill, Jan.1891. Charlotte Boger told of how her mother, in 1816, visited her uncle, Mr Slatter, at Cumnor Vicarage. Reading in the garden one morning she overheard one Dick Lambourne plotting to murder her uncle (as a magistrate he had previously sent Lambourne to prison).Precautions were taken. 'Not long after, Dick Lambourne was transported for life'.