Roebuck Street in the 1921 census

 

By 1921 the make up of Roebuck Street had changed. There were 141 households Fewer people worked at Sandwell Colliery and many more at the carriage works. There were also a lot of people out of work. Families seemed to be smaller with most couple only having two or three children at home.

As far as the Hamilton were concerned in 1921,  at no 17 lived my grandparents Walter and Gertrude Lily. He was a turner at the carriage works. Their children at that stage were Arthur Dorothy, Alfred, Frederick and Joseph Sydney (my father). Also living with them were my grandmother’s brother Alfred Timmins, a butcher. According to my father he was an invalid who had been gassed in the First World War, and who didn’t live long after that. In 1939 the family were still there, with my father who had not yet joined the army being shown as a coachbuilder. My grandmother stayed in the house until the street was demolished in the early 1960s

Yet another Alfred, Alfred Hamilton, who I assume was my grandfather’s brother, lived at no 36. He also worked at the carriage works. He had two sons, Alfred and Walter. I think Walter must be my father’s cousin and friend Waller, as they were born in the same year. Waller famously refused to go down the pit as a Bevan boy and was sent to jail, after telling the judge that if it was so important then the judge should go down the pit himself. He later joined the army. I believe that in the 60s and 70s he also lived in Great Barr but I do not remember him. Number 36 isn’t listed in the 1939 register for some reason, so we don’t know what happened after that.

Number 66 was the home of my great grandfather Joseph, who was an engine winder at Sandwell Colliery. Here’s a picture of a winding engine now in the Black Country Living Museum J&C Stark Winding Engine © Ashley Dace :: Geograph Britain and Ireland. As far as I can make out an engine winder worked above ground and was responsible for the maintenance of the machinery. His father Samuel Amblett had been killed maintaining the winding machinery at Tipton Green colliery. By 1921 Joseph was 71, so presumably he had retired. Only two children are at home, Joseph Sydney (after whom Dad must have been named) and Phyllis Lilian. According to Dad she was a modern woman. In 1921 when she was 21 she was a bookkeeper and typist and according to my father, in the 1930s she rode a motorbike, and ran away to Tenbury Wells with a married man and kept a sweet shop. Unusually my great grandfather had owned no 66, and by 1939 my father’s eldest brother Arthur and his wife Minnie lived there. Dorothy (Auntie Dorrie) also lived there until she married in 1940. There was someone else whose record has been redacted.

In the 1950s we lived at no 85. It wasn’t one of the family houses and in 1921 William Bytheway lived there with his wife Ethel. He was an engineer at Turners Engineers in Birmingham. In the 1939 Register they had left.  Herbert Alford an inspector of castings lived there with his wife Winifred who was the manageress of a grocery shop.

And finally at no 102 were Ernest Hamilton, my grandfather’s brother and his wife Gertrude. He was a fitter at the carriage works. They were still there in the 1939 register, and I remember them in the 1950s when we lived opposite.

More on Naughty Uncle Jack

Jack continues to prove elusive, but we've found his death certificate which has given us a few more clues.
We now know that Jack died on 3rd February 1953 aged 54, of acute bronchitis and emphysema. But we know that he was born in October 1896 so he was 56 not 54. And he was still a watch maker, and his address was 27 Park Road Hampton Wick Twickenham.

The death was registered by his mother in law M L Hawkins of 68 Richmond Park Road, Kingston upon Thames.

My mother visited Jack in 1939. She always said he lived in Kingston upon Thames but the 1939 census shows him living at 147 High Street Uxbridge. Also on the census is his wife. Her name has been transcribed as Patricillia, which is absurd. Looking closely at the original it looks like Letitia M.
Her date of birth was given as 26th May 1911. I have not managed to find her birth registration or the registration of their marriage.

The Hawkins family were living at 68 Richmond Park Road in 1939, William Charles Hawkins ( no job, private means) born 1884, Mary L  Hawkins born  1885. (this is the woman described as Jack's mother in law in 1953 who is only a year older than him)  and three adult children Lettie born 1912, a nurse, Richard born 1916, an aircraft wing assembler, and Constance born 1917, who is at home. But I cannot find the family in Surrey or Middlesex in 1911.

Surely the Letitia described as Jack's wife and the Lettie, described as a single daughter are the same person. Were they actually married. Jack was divorced so there was no reason why they shouldn't be .
So the mystery still isn't solved.

IGI

I know that it's been a long time since I did any family history,  especially for the further back ones, but I was quite disappointed when I looked at IGI today. In order to do a search you have to create an account - it's still free, but they want far too many personal details. It's a shame, but I won't be using it.

More on the Mills Family

In the 1871 census John Saunders is living in Dudley with his wife, now called Mariam, his 6 year old son and Hannah Mills who is 17 and visiting

John Saunders married Julia Mills in Dudley in 1865, but she died in 1866. A John Saunders married Myra Mills in 1869. Is this our Miriam, and he re-married to Julia’s sister.

In the 1881 census William and Elizabeth Mills are living in Ladywood in Birmingham with the Saunders family. William, aged 79 is described as formerly whitesmith. At this stage John’s wife name is clearly written as Myra. I’m sure that I have the right family because Alexander Saunders was one of the witnesses at the marriage of Sarah Emily Mills to Joseph Hamilton.

By the 1891 census we know that Elizabeth Mills is living with Sarah Emily and Joseph Hamilton and I can’t find the Saunders family.

We must therefore assume that William died between 1881 and 1891, but there were an awful lot of William Mills of the right age died in Birmingham and the Black Country in those ten years, so without more to go on, I can do no more.

Thomas Cotterill great great grandfather

My next great great grandparent is Thomas Cotterill the father of Sarah who married James Timmins

There are several variations on the spelling name Cotterill throughout the original documents, and I have stabilised on this one. Like so many in our story Cotterill is a name almost entirely confined to the Black Country in 1881, according to the National  Trust surnames database http://gbnames.publicprofiles.org . It is very uncommon still in the south and north. The name derives from the Saxon word cotter which was a serf who held his cottage by labour service rather than by paying rent. There have been some prominent Cotterills in West Bromwich history including two mayors and the founder of the West Bromwich Building Society, but I can’t see a link between them and our Cotterills. There is also a Cotterill Street in West Bromwich.

For Thomas’ early life we have to back to before registration.  According to IGI Going backwards to before registration, according to IGI. Thomas Cotterill was born on 25^th May 1813 and christened on 24^th November 1813 at St Lawrence Darlaston. Thomas father was also Thomas Cotterill and his mother was Mary. Thomas married Hannah Tompkinson on 13^th March 1836 in Walsall.

I can’t find the family in the 1841 census but this is not unusual. On later censuses Thomas, his wife Hannah and their eldest son Isaiah were all born in Darlaston, while the rest of the children were born in West Bromwich. This suggests that the family moved to West Bromwich between 1838 when Isaiah was born and 1841 when Thomas Jnr was born. In 1851 the family is living in Hargate Lane West Bromwich

At the time of the 1861 census Thomas was listed as a coal miner and the family was already living in Stoney Lane, where they stayed for the rest of Thomas’s life.  Thomas was still alive at the time of the 1901 census and at the age of 88 was still describing himself as a coal miner. Living with him, still at No 8 Stoney Lane, were his married daughter Maria and her husband John Whitehouse. Thomas’ grandson George, now 22 is also still living with them. Thomas Snr died in 1902, at home in Stoney Lane at the age of 91.

An update on Ann Worrall

As I get going again, I've looked at my file on Ann and discovered that I had sent for a marriage certificate. It shows that she married James Timmins on 18^th July 1855, but if I have the right marriage they already had 6 children at that stage. We know that James’s wife Ann’s maiden name was Worrall because it is given clearly on the birth certificates of her children Cornelius and Eliza Jane. And the father’s name is given correctly as James. So I'm pretty sure that I have the right person and we shall never know why they married so late.

I'll leave them there and move on to next great great grandparent, who will be Thomas Cotterill.

Getting going again

I wrote about the really useful booklet from the Nuneaton and North Warwickshire Family History Society. I have just finished transcribing all the family tree information from there onto Ancestry into a new tree called janddhamilton. The previous tree had become corrupted for all sorts of reasons and we wanted to make sure that everything on there is known to us to be factual. So now back to where I left off some time ago, with the elusive Ann Worrall.