Annie Murphy

As the 4 times great-granddaughter of Charlotte Turner Smith, I have to say I was disappointed with some of the comments made by Ms Fletcher. Firstly, my 3 x great-grandmother, Anni Petroose was married to my 3 x great-grandfather Nicholas Hankey Smith. In fact, they were married 3 times! Ms Fletcher talks about my grandmother as his lover, saying she was left behind, “ or perhaps she was dead by now” (pg 337). She actually lived with him as his legal wife in England and died in Madras on her way to Australia to live with her daughter, Madelina Mitchell (nee Smith) with whom she had a close and loving relationship. Nicholas was not married to his housekeeper, Susan Pierpoint. He lived with her and had an illegitimate (I loathe using that word) family of 7 children. The children he had legitimately, including my grandmother, called their half brothers and sisters “Soap Suds”, however; as far as we are concerned, they are still related to us and my son has communicated with one of those descendants in America. Ms Fletcher also said Nicholas and Anni had “at least 3 children,” as she stated on pg 28, however; they had 15 children together which included twins who were still born and Madelina’s twin who was overlain by the nanny, so I don’t know where she got her facts from. The eldest, Lucena, was born in 1719 in Persia, I’m not sure where the next child, George Hankey was born. The next son, John was born in Calcutta, India and my great-great grandmother, Madelina was born in Chertsey, Surry, in Great Thurlow, Suffolk with her twin brother. I won’t go into the rest of the children’s births, although this attests to the fact that Anni was living with Nicholas in England as his lawful wife. And, last but not least, I seem to recall Ms Fletcher saying Anni was not Persian, but I beg to differ, because my DNA test says I have Persian ancestry, Iranian in particular! Annie Murphy