On November 12th 1809 a baby boy was born to George & Sarah Purser in the Bedfordshire Village of Pavenham. Named Charles this baby boy already had one brother, over the next few years he acquired four more along with two sisters. When he was 16 his mother Sarah died, his father George Purser re-married surprisingly quickly and the family was further enlarged as Charles gained three half brothers and three half sisters. So with 15 brothers and sisters it is fair to say that they were a large family even by the standards of the day.

It is hard to say how many of them would have been stuffed into one house at the same time, doubtless they were "encouraged" to set up their own homes as quickly as their parents could get them out of the door! They cover a fair spread of ages, the eldest George having been born in 1805 and the youngest Lucy & Thomas, twins born in 1835.

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Sadly in those days whilst people tended to have large families, they did have to reckon on losing a few along the way. I do not have dates of death for the entire family but of those that I do have, three boys and one girl died before their third birthday.  The twins both died, Thomas at 8 months Lucy at 13 months, to cap it all George's second wife Susannah died about a week after twin Thomas.  There is no record of what they died of, however  with 15 kids they must have been living in grossly overcrowded conditions so tuberculosis has to be very likely as the cause of death of at least some of them. So far as I can find out, George Purser was an agricultural worker, and can't have earned all that much money so their house was not going to have been very big.

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By the time of the first national census in 1841 several of George's offspring can be found having married and set up their own homes, Charles & James both in Pavenham. Sadly though, by then George had lost his second wife and he was living in Bedford Union Workhouse.  What may have happened here? Presumably he was too old or feeble to work and his house was probably tied to his former work leaving him destitute.  You would have thought that between his 15 kids they could have kept him out of the workhouse but clearly not.