Francis Charles Slade Moorman

Francis Charles Slade Moorman

The Moorman family, which started out in Cornwall, arrived in Jersey in about 1808 in the person of Francis Charles Slade Moorman, born in 1772, the son of William Moorman and Eden Bovey.

Second marriage

Watchmaker Francis Charles Slade Moorman must have been a colourful character. Within a short time of arriving in Jersey he met Prudence Martin, eight years his junior, and they married in St Helier in 1809. Francis was described on the wedding certificate as a bachelor, but this hid a massive secret – he had been married six years before in England, although he does not appear to have had any children by his first marriage.

He married his first wife, Mary Corfield, in 1803, but disappeared from the scene in Cornwall three years later, surfacing in Jersey where he married Prudence.

Their firstborn, also called Francis Charles Slade Moorman, followed his father's profession and was a clockmaker in Broad Street, one of the most fashionable of St Helier streets. In 1835 he married Elizabeth Temperance Varrant in St Helier when she was apparently only 15.

They had 11 children. The eldest, Francis Charles Moorman, married Elizabeth Clements in Hampshire and they had 13 children there. His younger brother Charles Slade Moorman married Mary Trewen Youlton in Guernsey and they had 11 children there.

So the family began to reduce in Jersey, but some of those from the UK moved to Guernsey and then to Jersey, and eventually there were more Moorman descendants back in Jersey and none in the sister island.

Researchers

Descendants Christopher Moorman, who has worked to produce an extensive family history with cousins, including Christopher Brough, who still lives in Jersey today, and who supplied the up-to-date results of their labours to help us create an extensive Moorman family section for Jerripedia, is uncertain as to exactly how Francis Charles Slade Moorman snr's life progressed.

'Family researches suggest that Francis disappeared in 1806 from all records, not to reappear until three years later, until found in Jersey in 1809, along with a subtle name change, and marriage to Prudence Martin.

'Christopher Brough carried out his own research to identify where Prudence Martin c.1774 hailed from. However it's not clear, although some evidence points to other Cornwall areas, but nothing proven. Perhaps another subtle name change for anonymity!

'Perhaps Jersey was an appropriate place for an 'eloping' couple, to seek a new life and identity, who can say.'