| Examination Text | The Examination of Betty Power lodging at a Butcher's near Southampton Street in the Strand in the Parish of St Martin in the Fields taken this 20th Day of January 1777. This Examinant on her oath saith that she is about 37 years of age, that she is the widow of John Power (who died about 12 years ago) to whom she was married at the Parish Church of Blandford in the County of Dorset about 19 years ago, that her said husband was a Shoemaker by trade and lived in and rented an house in Salisbury Street in the Parish of Blandford in the County of Dorset for the space of 18 years, but what rent he paid for the same she cannot tell, but that she hath heard her said husband say that he paid the Church and Poors rates for the same, and also that her said husband served seven years apprenticeship to Mr Hayne a Shoemaker in Blandford aforesaid as she this Examinant hath been informed by her said husband, that her said husband never kept house rented a tenement of 10 pounds by the year paid any parish taxes since he quitted the said house at Blandford, that she this Examinant hath not kept house rented a tenement of 10 pounds by the year paid any parish taxes since the death of her said husband. And this Examinant on her oath further saith that she was on the 22nd Day of December in the year 1770 delivered at a house let out in tenements in Eagle Court in the said Parish of St Martin in the Fields of a female bastard child (since christened Elizabeth) yet living and is likely to become chargeable to the said Parish of St Martin in the Fields, and that Samuel Harris a Porter at his lodging aforesaid, did beget on her body the said female bastard child, and that he the said Samuel Harris is the true and only father thereof and no man else. And further this Examinant on her oath saith that she is now Great with child or children which is or are likely to be born a bastard or bastards and to become chargeable to the said Parish of St Martin in the Fields, and that he the said Samuel Harris did beget her with child or children she now goeth with and is pregnant of, and that he the said Samuel Harris is the true and only father thereof and no man else. Sworn the 20th Day of January 1777 before John Hale. |
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