TWISTS, TURNS & REVELATIONS
Gill Shaw turns her attention to the Riboldi sisters – and gets some surprising news about their brothers
With the Riboldi brothers settled in Lancashire, it’s the turn of their sisters – so step forward Emma Sophia, born 1866, Catherine Mary, born 1867, and Florence Annette, born 1869, just weeks after their father’s death. Where did they get to, and what can we find in the records?
Diving straight into the 1871 Census worked a treat for the boys, so I try the same again. I input the surname and a rough birth year, and Findmypast returns a single result, the eldest girl, Emma.
It’s no surprise to find five-year-old Emma Riboldi, scholar, living in what looks to be a convent-cum-orphanage in Westminster. What is a surprise, is that she’s on her own. I flit from page to page, but there’s no sign of Catherine or Florence. In fact, there’s very little information about any of these children at all, apart from their names and ages. Under ‘Where born’, it just says ‘UK’.
The full address is Carlisle Place Convent, St Margaret’s, Westminster, and, at the start of the institution’s entry, there’s a side-heading, St Vincent de Paul.
The nuns running the home, nine of them, are led by Marie Chatelain, a French-born ‘Sister Superioress’ (ooh, very Sound of Music…), and supported by three nurses, a cook, a laundress, a porter (the only male) and a mistress of needlework. I count just under 100 children, ranging in age from five months to late teens.
On a map, Carlisle Place is almost slap bang next to Westminster Abbey. There’s a convent building there still and, next door, the St Vincent’s Centre, which works with homeless people. St Vincent’s Orphanage for Girls opened at Carlisle Place in 1863, and included a workroom (needlework, presumably) and a school.
Brief lives
But not only is Emma the sole sister on the 1871 Census, it’s also her only census. There’s no sign of her in 1881, so I check the death register and it becomes clear why. Emma ‘Ribaldi’ died in 1879, aged 13, and Florence in 1870, aged 0. Their middle names, Sophia and Annette, are all but forgotten.
I’m not surprised to find baby Florence didn’t survive her first year, though I’d assumed she was still with her mother Emma Susannah. But Florence’s death was registered in Westminster St Margaret where the convent is, not St George in the East where the Riboldis lived.
Hmm. I’m getting a niggling feeling that the timeline of events I’ve
