Sampson without his heir ...

 

Arthur Bewick is my ebay vendor of the week. He's come up with another family ... the Sampsons of Northampton and London ...

Thomas Newnham SAMPSON (b Loaf Alley, Shoreditch 11 December 1814; d 23 Grafton Rd, Acton 6 January 1905) wharfinger's clerk, manager for Mr John Humphery at Hibernia Wharf, London Brdge, and later wharfinger himself, son of John Sampson, chemist and druggist, and his wife, Mary née Newnham, married, 22 September 1849, Mary Atkins, daughter of Thomas Iliff Atkins (1791; d 5 September 1847), upholsterer, paperhanger and cabinet maker (with his sons, Edward and Benjamin) and his wife, Mildred (d 29 December 1869), of Augustin St, Northampton. 

This photo would seem to be our couple: 'Mr and Mrs Sampson'.

Thomas and Mary had eight children -- five daughters and three sons -- between 1851 and 1867. Two boys died as infants ... and one daughter and one son died in early adulthood ...

These seem to be they

Annie Agnes SAMPSON (b Camden 25 November 1854; d Chipping Norton 1878)

Arthur Newnham SAMPSON (b 17 Frederick Street, 23 June 1867; d Frederick Street, Gray's Inn Lane 26 May 1898). Arthur is still at home in 1891, with no employment, and when he died, aged 31, he had made a will ...

Here is Annie again

That left four daughters to accompany their long-lived parents into the 21st century ..

[Mary] Mildred SAMPSON (b Southwark 4 February 1851; d 19 Homefield Rd, Sudbury 6 December 1933)

Fanny Jane SAMPSON (b 17 Frederick Street 27 May 1858; d 21 Westlecot Rd, Swindon 24 November 1956)

Emily Maria SAMPSON (b 17 Frederick Street 25 May 1860; d 39 St Helen's Park Rd, Hastings 30 July 1951)

All lived long, occasionally worked as schoolteachers, remained spinsters, living comfortably and died leaving a competence, each of them, of nearly ten thousand pounds.

It was left to youngest sister Alice Margaret SAMPSON (b Frederick Street 5 October 1863; d 39 St Helen's Park Rd, Hastings 30 September 1951) to carry on, if not the family name, at least its line. 

Alice married (24 FEbruary 1900) solicitor Joseph Godfrey Nicholls (d Worthing 11 October 1958), and gave birth to a daughter, Margaret Ivy Mary Nicolls (b Wembley 24 September 1901; d Bosham 24 November 1990), and a solicitor son Joseph Anthony Sampson Nicholls (b Sunnyholme, Elm Rd, Wenbley 19 January 1906; d Chorleywood, Herts 10 January 1992) ... the daughter remained unmarried, but the son married Aline Sherwood in 1931, had a son Peter Anthony 22 September 1939 ... so mayhap the Sampson blood still runs ..

Mr Bewick's page, however, hold two further Sampson pictures. One is labelled John SAMPSON

Could this be Thomas Newnham's father? He would have been pretty old by the invention of popular photography. 

And then this lady ... Margaret Sampson married John Alderson ....

But I'm sure the back says Margaret SIMPSON. And John Alderson married Margaret Simpson in Yorkshire in 1829 ...    John worked in the coal mines.

This should have been easy, but the card's verso also mentions a Henry CALLARD. He married Elizabeth Alderston in 1858 ...

Well, there we are. I've done my best. Maybe some more photos will appear ... for the moment, I'm a bit unsure on this one ..

Why no Nicholls photos?