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I am Corrine Gowers and I am the daughter of Charles Watson Gowers and Mary Rachel (Hunter) Gowers 1rst wife. My father is the son of Watson Gowers and Constance (Gunnell) Gowers. Constance is my grandmother and the daughter of Charles and Isabel Gunnell. She is also the grand daughter of John and Mary Gunnell.
Charles and Constance Gowers had 3 children. Joyce Gowers ( married to Oscar Malmoe) , Charles Gowers ( my father) and Barb Gowers ( married to Ron Martin).
My father Charles Gowers and Mary Rachel (Hunter) Gowers had three children: Doug the eldest, Murray middle child and myself Corrine Helena Gowers the youngest.
I am the mother of Michelle Gowers (married to Bobby Gunderson August 14 2004). Izabela Roselle Gunderson their daughter born August 21, 2005.
I am turning 50, next year and would like to finish a history on the Gunnell part of my family not only for me but for my Dad and his two sisters. This is the information I have on John and Mary Gunnell but would like to go back further and see who John and Mary’s father and mother were, when they died and if there and any other information on this family. Who was Mary Gunnell before she married John? Is her family from Chesham and is anyone still alive and living there who would want to share this journey. All photos and history was burned in the fire of the Gowers homestead. My grandmother constance died before I was born.
I believe my Gunnell family originally (in 1861 at least) came from Chesham in Buckinghamshire and then moved to Harpenden in Hertfordshire, Census shows all the names of my grandmother’s family including her (Constance Gunnell). Her father Charles Gunnell was born in Chesham Buckingshire to John and Mary Gunnell. The 1851 Census indicate John Gunnell 26, a pauper sawyer, and his wife Mary 28, a straw plaiter, living at Chesham Moor. Their children are Charles 6, Mary Ann 4 and John 2. They were all born in Chesham. John Gunnell appears in only one trade directory, 1863, where he is a beer retailer and shopkeeper, at Waterside. Waterside is the road parallel to the River Chess, which is the route to London. There were no Gunnells in Chesham when the Posse Comitatus was compiled in 1798 although there are several in the Marlow area and along the Thames I have also provided a little bit about Charles son of John Gunnell
1891 Census indicate:
Charles Gunnell 36 Watercress Grower married to Isabel Gunnell 35 of Redbourne, Herts. Thery raised their family at 108 Coldharbour Lane, Harpenden, Hertfordshire.
The following children were all born in Redbourne.
Ellen, age 22 (1901) was a Dressmaker in Redbourne, Herts. Ellen Gunnell must of moved away during this time period because it shows her as being with the family in 1891.
Dora age 14 (1901) Dressmaker apprentice Harpenden, Herts
Charles, I understand married a woman who gave birth to a son and died shortly after. Some else in the family raised the son. This is unclear to me.
Edward or Teddy Gunnell (was a Corporal in the Army in WW1).
In Memory of
Lance Corporal E GUNNELL
M2/045642, M.T., Army Service Corps
attd. 91st Siege Bty, Royal Garrison Artillery
who died on 10 July 1917
He is buried in the village of Adinkerke Belgium.
Commemorated in perpetuity by
the Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Horace, Grace, Isabel who I have no information on. Constance (My grand mother) and Olive who married a man named George Corn in Birmingham.
I understand Chesham in Buckinghamshire, where Charles senior came from is just outside London to the north west, about 25 miles from the centre of the city. Fyurther in 1901 it would have been a rural community; now it is on the edge of the urban sprawl with its own tube station but is still rural on the northern and western sides. Redbourne or Harpenden in Hertfordshire is the county directly to the north of London. Although I could not find Redbourne on a map, Harpenden is a town again on the fringes of London now.
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