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Henry PENFOLD ( - )Tree035:001

Name:	Henry PENFOLD
ONS Reference:	Tree035:001
Sex:	Male
Record Id:	6293
Father:	-
Mother:	-

Individual Events and Attributes

(none)

Marriage

Spouse	Mary Ann ( - )
Children	William PENFOLD (1811?- )
	Henry PENFOLD (1812- )
	Thomas PENFOLD (1813-1854)
	George PENFOLD (1815-1879)
	John PENFOLD (1823- )

Individual Note 1

Note From Matthew Penfold:

Henry Penfold, born about 1776, is the earliest ancestor we have so far traced. The 1841 census recorded his occupation, but unfortunately the writing is so faded that it is illegble.

He must have died sometime during the 1840s, for by 1851 his wife Mary Ann was living

with her son George. She was born in Westminster about 1786, and made paper bags, as

most of her children seem to have done. The manufacture of paper bags dates from the

end of the eighteenth century, and it would be nice to think that Henry and Mary Ann

were pioneers of the craft, but we have no evidence to show that they were. The bags

were expensive because the work was time-consuming, the paper costly and the glue took

a long time to dry. Paper bags were made by folding a piece of paper diagonally and

gluing the side, so that they were pointed like icecream cones: a machine to make the far

more useful square-bottomed ones was invented about 1860, by one Margaret Knight in America.

Individual Note 2

Note From Matthew Penfold:

Henry and Mary Ann Penfold had at least five sons, all but one of whom were involved at some stage in the manufacture of paper bags in or near Islington. Whether they worked from home or in some communal factory we do not know. Some of them became

printers, which suggests that their work probably involved the printed labelling of the bags. Since they were all born before the first censuses were taken, we cannot tell whether they had any sisters, or indeed how many children the family included.