Wrestling with Death (places)

William WREFORD was my famous (in those times) wrestling ancestor hailing from Devon (previously mentioned here and here).  So, the fact that the only likely death entry for him was registered in London was a bit worrying for me.  Could I be confident this was really him?

Luckily, I had found a newspaper article mentioning he had died 'in the metropolis' to help put my mind at ease:

DEATH OF A RENOWNED DEVONSHIRE WRESTLER. - On Sunday last the veteran William Wreford died after a very short illness at the house of one of his children, in the metropolis. (Exeter and Plymouth Gazette (Friday, 07 December, 1866)

The Wreford Pedigree also notes that he died 26 November 1866 aged 74 which matches the death record, so I'm confident this is my William WREFORD.

The death record states William, a yeoman, died of 'Natural decay' on 26 November 1866 at 5 New Street, Bishopsgate [London].  However, the informant is listed as Thomas Cusiok/Cuscok (also living at 5 New Street), NOT one of his children.

Two of his children were living in London around this time.  William's son, also named William, had been living in London from at least 1840 - he had married at St Dunstan in the East, and was in the censuses until 1861 as living in the court behind St Clement's church, Eastcheap. (He was in the police force but by 1871, he was a 'coffee house keeper' a little further north in Paul Street.)

St Clement's Church, Clement's Lane

Also, his daughter, Elizabeth had married a mariner (Alexander SMALL) in London, 1853 and was a widowed lodging house keeper by the 1871 census (where she lived further north in Tower Hamlets - I'm yet to find her on the 1861 census).  Could Thomas Cusiok have been one of her lodgers?

Next Steps:

• Who is Thomas Cusiok/Cuscok?
• Find Elizabeth SMALL (nee WREFORD) in 1861 census

Workhouse Call

Read 1st part here and 2nd part here.

It took some time (and a bit of money) for me to find the right George PALMER's death certificate. I am now quite sure this is the correct one as the age, occupation and location fit.

George Palmer's death certificate - 29th October 1896

After an eventful life, George died in Westminster Union Workhouse. How did he end up there?

Note that George died of 'Senile Decay'. Does this mean I have another lunatic on my hands?
Ancestry UK now has London Poor Law records available to view online. I searched the Westminster Union 'Register of Lunatics', which thankfully has a surname index and found there were no PALMER lunatics between the years of 1890 and 1898.

Unfortunately the 'Admission and Discharge Book' does NOT have a surname index. Using George's date of death, I found his 'discharge' (death).

October 1896 Westminster Union Workhouse 'Admission and Discharge Book'

George died on Thursday, October 29th 1896. His last meal was breakfast and his diet was described as 'class 2' (The Workhouse site explains the class of diet from 1900 onwards but I have yet to find a key to the Westminster Union classes in 1896).

The 1891 census for Westminster Union Workhouse contains a George Palmer of the same age, occupation and county of birth as mine.

George PALMER on the 1891 census in Westminster Union Workhouse

Presuming the George on the 1891 census is mine (the town of birth is listed as Winchester, Hampshire whereas all the other information that I have, states that George was born in Portsea, Hampshire), I have a window of 10 years in which to search for his admission.

Considering there is no surname index, this is a bit of a tedious task as I have to trawl through each page in the book for his surname - wish me luck!

Future House Call (Using Google Street View)

Read 1st part here.

After his second wife died, George seemed to move around, lodging at various places in London. His marriage to second wife Emily FELLA was so short that it didn't feature in any of the censuses (they married in 1873 - she died in 1875). Luckily for me, Emily's death certificate lists George as the informant and his residence as 54 Swinton St, London (Emily also died here).

Death Certifcate of Emily Jane FELLA -1875

A quick search of Rumsey's site informs me that houses still exist at this site:

I am aware that house numbers changed at some time in the past and need to check that number 54 Swinton St today is the same number 54 Swinton Street of 1875. Even so, it's another address for me to visit when I'm in London. I like being able to get a feel of how my ancestor's lives may have lived.

I used Google's street view for a quick peek at the area. Click and drag the orange man on to the map and use the on screen tools to have a look around.

Did the PALMERs live (and in Emily's case, die) in these buildings:

Or these?

Read 3rd part here.

House Call

Whilst reading my copy of 'Your Family Tree' magazine, I came across a great resource for people with London ancestors. The David Rumsey Historical Map Collection includes an 1843 London map which you can transpose over google's current satellite map. This would have saved me a lot of time a couple of years ago.

I don't have many links to London in my tree. The only significant person in my tree to reside in London was George Wright PALMER and part of his family.

George was born in Portsea and his job in the Royal Navy caused him to move around a bit. For some reason, George was in London at the time of the 1871 census. He was living at 33 Marshall St with his first wife, Mary Ann and youngest son, Edward.

Palmer family in 1871 census

(click for larger image)

When I went on the hunt for this address a couple of years ago, I had to switch between windows and use educated guesses to pinpoint the locations. With Rumsey's site, I was able to search and quickly locate Marshall St in Westminster.

Here is a photograph I took of what I believe to be 33 Marshall St. I found it the hard way but using this map overlay it was so quick and simple.




Here is a picture I found of 33 - 36 Marshall St, taken in the 1960s (annoyingly from the opposite direction to my picture).

It's hard to say how long George and his reduced family lived at this address. Mary Ann died the next year and he married his second wife, Emily Jane FELLA in 1873. Tragically, she died just two years later.
I'm not often able to find detailed information on the houses in which my ancestors lived, which makes the details I found at British History Online even more special.

Most of these buildings [...] were erected in the 1820's by or under the supervision of Thomas Finden after the closure of Carnaby Market [...]. This redevelopment was uniformly planned, small in area and scale, but forming to-day an unusually pleasant oasis for pedestrians, and offering facilities for shopping away from the through streets. There is accommodation for shop-keepers over the shops, as well as for chamber trades such as tailoring. The least altered parts are the block bounded on the west by Newburgh Street and on the south by Ganton Street, and the two pedestrian courts west of Newburgh Street—Lowndes Court and Marlborough Court.
The prevailing form was the four-storey terrace house fronted in stock brick, two windows wide with plain window-openings, and a continuous plain parapet with stone coping. The windows, most of which have their original narrow glazing-bars, have stone sills. The ground floors were built as shops from the beginning, for this was the period of the planned shopping street...
The ground floors of Nos. 33–36 Marshall Street have thin pilaster-strips and a continuous entablature; space appears to have been provided for shop-windows but, except at No. 35, these spaces have only one domestic-size window each. The ground floors of Nos. 20–22 Peter Street are similar.

(From: 'Marshall Street Area', Survey of London: volumes 31 and 32: St James Westminster, Part 2 (1963), pp. 196-208. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=41471 Date accessed: 10 January 2010).
(The bold font was added by myself for ease of reference).

Read 2nd part here.