Edward Denne was the eldest son and fourth child of eight children of William and Sukey Denne (nee Gorham), who married on 6 April 1802 at All Saints parish church, Maidstone. William, a cabinet maker, camefrom a long line of Kentish landowners and gentlemen farmers living at Kingston, Bursted, and latterly Chilham and Shottenden.

Edward was born in Maidstone on 1 November 1810, and baptised on 28November 1810 at All Saints, Maidstone. Nothing is known of his and his family’s early life; whilst electoral registers from 1833/4 to 1850/1 record that his father owned properties in Maidstone, it is likely that Edward had left home some time earlier, possibly not long after reaching the school leaving age of 14.

At the age of 27, he married Elizabeth Millward on 25 December 1837 atSt Michael Bassishaw church in the city of London. Elizabeth had been born in Shoreditch in 1815/6. . Edward’s occupation was also cabinet maker, and he may perhaps have been apprenticed to (up to no laterthan age 21) and/or later employed by Edward Millward. At the time of their marriage, Edward and Elizabeth were both living at 24, Upper Clifton Street, Finsbury; possibly this was the Millwards’ home and Edward was lodging there.

By the 1851 census, Edward and Elizabeth and their then fivechildrenwere living at 8 Claremont Place, Mile End. At the time ofMark’s birth in 1853, they were living at 6 Friendly Place, Stepney,and by 1858they had moved to 15 Louisa Street, off Beaumont Street inStepney, where they were living at the time of the 1861, 1871 and 1881 censuses- with Edward still noted as a cabinet maker at age 70 in the latter,and his wife age 66.

Edward died at 15 Louisa Street on 11 August 1890, aged 79 (registeredat Mile End Old Town). In his will dated 30 August 1889, he appointedhis sons William Gorham and George Henry as his executors, leavingproperty valued at £240.8.7, with provisions as follows (which suggest that his wife Elizabeth had died by that time, probably as registeredat Mile End Old Town in Q4 1883, aged 67):

•household furniture and effects equally to his four sons
•all plate to be divided equally between sons William and George
•wife’s gold watch and chain to eldest grand-daughter Nellie
•rent from share in three freehold properties in Maidstone (52 and55King Street, and cottage in Wheeler Street) split between four sons and sister (with the latter’s share sent to Mrs C Denne in Newtown,near Sydney, New South Wales); on death of all sons, properties to be shared equally between all grandchildren.

His sister may in fact have been Miss (not Mrs) Caroline Denne, asalthough she had a daughter in 1850 (Caroline Haslam Denne, who became a millworker and at 19 married John Rupell, a 23 year old painter, in Canterbury on 25 June 1870), she is believed not to have married; herdaughter’s marriage certificate shows her father as John Haslam, a commercial traveller, and the 1856 will of her aunt Catherine refersto her as a spinster. Background to her emigration to Australia is not known but it is presumably likely not to have been before her daughter’s coming of age in 1871 or her marriage in the previous year (although she was not shown as a witness to the marriage).