His reticence and desired anonymity was probably due to his illegitimacy and his relationship with Anne, but it was complicated by the later statements of his two legitimate sons on whom he looked with some displeasure. He had little in common with them and they in turn looked down on Anne as ‘of much lower rank in life’ than their mother. Thomas and Anne apparently had their last child, Gilbert Hay Allen (1829-1902), in south London in 1829 and in 1839 Thomas was in hiding at 10 Portland Place North, Clapham Road, Lambeth, as ‘Mr Salmond’. In the 1841 census he was entered at that address as ‘Thomas MacGaradh’, aged 70, and born in Scotland. He ostensibly registered the death of his wife Catherine Matilda at Portland Place North, on 14 February 1841, again calling himself Thomas MacGaradh, but describing her as ‘Matilda Manning, widow’. When the census was taken a few months later Anne was living with him at this address as Anne MacGaradh. MacGaradh was, his sons said, a war-cry of the Hay family but it was entirely their creation and it seems likely that they or Anne were responsible for their father’s statements. The death of Catherine Matilda in 1841 did, however, eventually allow the purchase by Charles of the family’s life interest in the trust properties from his father’s bankruptcy assignees.