William Henry Bury - Childhood and Youth

Childhood and Youth

William was born in Stourbridge, Worcestershire. He was orphaned in infancy. His father, Henry Bury, who worked for a local fishmonger called Joscelyne, died in a horse and cart accident in Halesowen on 10 April 1860. While on an incline, Henry Bury fell beneath the wheels of his own fish cart and was killed when the horse bolted and pulled the cart over his prone body. William's mother, Mary Jane Bury (née Henley), may already have been suffering from post-natal depression at the time of her husband's death, and was committed to the Worcester County Pauper and Lunatic Asylum on 7 May 1860 suffering from melancholia. She remained there until her death aged 33 on 30 March 1864.

William was the youngest of four children. His eldest sibling, Elizabeth Ann, died aged seven during an epileptic fit on 7 September 1859, which may have contributed to Mary Jane's depression. The other two children, Joseph Henry and Mary Jane, both died before 1889. William was raised initially in Dudley by his mother's younger brother, Edward Henley. By 1871, he was enrolled at the Blue Coat charity school in Stourbridge. Later claims that William's education was paid for by a close family friend may have been untrue.

At the age of sixteen, he found work as a factor's clerk in a warehouse at Horseley Fields, Wolverhampton. In the early 1880s, William left the warehouse after failing to repay a loan. He then worked for a lock manufacturer called Osborne in Lord Street, Wolverhampton, until he was sacked for theft in either 1884 or 1885. For the next few years, his whereabouts are not known for certain, but he appears to have lived an unsettled life in the English Midlands and Yorkshire. In 1887, he was making a living as a hawker, selling small items such as lead pencils and key rings on the streets of Snow Hill, Birmingham.