Burgess Park Community Dig – Digging through the Census Records
July 5, 2010 Archaeology, Blogs, Burgess Park Community Dig, Community84 TRAFALGAR AVENUE
As well as digging holes in the ground at Burgess Park, we’re also digging through the Census returns for the houses we’re finding – and the current work is on what used to be 84 Trafalgar Road. Since the records are not published for 100 years, we can only see the censuses up to 1911, so can find out who lived in the houses when they were new, but not when the bomb fell. Here’s an overview of what we’ve discovered so far.
1871 – The Davis family, all born locally, lived at No 84, a husband and wife, 5 sons (aged 13-25), 1 daughter (aged 11) and a niece (aged 8). Mr Davis was a cashier for a firm of solicitors, 2 of his sons were clerks and another tailor. The younger children were at school.
1881 – Miss Sarah Wild was head of the house, living on independent means with 2 nieces. All 3 were born in Oldham, Lancashire, and on the day of the census, 2 other ladies from Oldham were staying with them.
1891 – No 84 is now split into two households. Albert Worsley, a goldsmith, originally from Norwich, his wife and 5 children (a son (11) and 5 daughters aged 10, 9, 7, 5 and 1) lived in the larger part of the house. But 3 rooms were rented separately by Thomas and Florence Smith.
1901 – Just one family living here again. Head of the household is Alfred Baker, who 10 years earlier lived next door at No 82 with his mother and sisters. Now he is married with a daughter, Myra, aged 9, and the family has a servant living in, so must have been quite well off. He worked from home as a Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages.
1911 – The house was still the office for recording Births, Marriages and Deaths, but the Registrar is now Mr Followes. His wife is dead, and his eldest daughter Elsie (19) works packaging medicines. His other 4 children were still at school. They have a servant who comes in by day, and they occupy 6 rooms in the house. The other 3 rooms are let by Margaret Edsall, a widow of 35 with an 11-year-old son and a daughter of 8. Mrs Edsall looks after an invalid at home, perhaps one of her children.
So an interesting range of people have lived at No 84 – we’ll keep you posted if we find out any more about any of them.
You can search the census for your own ancestors at Ancestry.co.uk
Roz Sherris, Museum of London