What our ancestors were up to according to the 1901 Census…

Sunter

1901 Census which shows that Charles Sunter is aged 19, a railway Stoker, and living at 5 Victoria Street, Thornaby. 

Thornaby is in Stockport and just to the South East of Unicorn Yard and Brunswick Street.  I cannot find Victoria Street on Google Earth although there is a Victoria Road.

The household is composed of:

• Jane A Sunter, head, widow, 57, Leadgale
• William Sunter, stepson, single, 29, Labourer Iron Works, Yorkshire Heights Swaledale
• Charles Sunter, son, single, 19, Railway Engin (sic) Stoker, Howden Le Wear
• Dorothy Sunter, daughter, 13, Yorkshire Redcar
• Gertrude Sunter, daughter, 11, Yorkshire Redcar
• Olive J Sunter, daughter, 10, Stockton
• Joseph Sunter, son, 6, Thornaby
• Edward Sunter, son, 3, Thornaby

Rick McGarry points out that Jane had a further son, James, in 1901. This implies that she must have been pregnant at the time of the census. Presumably William and Charles are a source of income for the family.

 Marsh family

John William Marsh (33), Jane Marsh (34) and Emma Marsh (7) are living in Leeds, Yorkshire. John is listed as being born in Leeds and is a Pit Sinker; Jane was born in Liverpool; and Emma is listed as being born in Rotherham, Yorkshire.

Emma’s sister, Amy (15), is living at 76 Kieghley Road, Halifax. She is a servant in the Driver household. James driver, the head of the househod is a 28 year old Gas Engineer’s Cashier. His brother in law, Thomas Ask is a solicitor’s clerk.

Merediths

Edward Meredith (24) is living in lodging at 25 Norton Road Stourbridge. He is boarding with Walter and Caroline Knowles. Edward is a carter for a wine merchant (the career his is to follow for the rest of his life). Walter is a carter for a corn dealer. There are several other carters and a glass blower living in nearby houses.

Edward’s parents, Joseph and Ann, and his brother – also Joseph – are living in Kingsford Lane, Kinver. Joseph snr is an ‘ordinary agricultural labourer’. Joseph jnr is a ‘Groom domestic’.

Hills

The Hill family (12 of them) are Farm bailiffs at Castle Hill Farm, Wolverley. Alfred Hill is a Farm Bailiff and has responsibility for running the farm. Alfred, 19, and Fred, 15 are farm labourers. Frances May – “Auntie May” is an 8 month old baby.
 
 

Edward (34), Ada (34), Gertrude (1) and Edward Meredith (4) living at 3 Bath Cottages, Cecil Street Stourbridge. They have three singers lodging with them. 
Joseph and Ann Meredith are living alone at Bird’s Barn, Kingsley, Wolverley.

Hill

Alfred (61), Alice (56), Edward (21), Sidney Walter (16), Amy Maud (14), James Earnest (12) and Frances May (10) are living at Beehive Farm, Golden Cross Lane, Catshill near Bromsgrove. Alfred , Sidney Walter and Edward are listed as farm workers and then more specifically as ‘haulers’ working on their own account.

Sunter (and Marsh)

Charles Sunter (29) is living with his soon to be wife, Emma Marsh (17). She is pregnant. They are boarding with Emma’s parents John William Marsh (45) and a Lodging House Keeper, his wife Jane (46) and their other daughter Amy Dawson who is registered on the census as married, although her husband is not with her on this night. Charles is an unemployed ‘fireman, locomotive’.

Of Charles’s family Jane Ann Sunter, his mother is in the Middlesbrough Workhouse. She is 46, a widow and working as ‘relife (sic) foster mother’ helping to look after 12 boys aged from 5 to 15. Ironically she is not looking after her own children:

Joe Sunter (16) and Edward (13) are living at the Edgworth National Children’s home near Bolton. Joe is listed as an office boy – it is believed he went on to be editor of the Colne Times. Edward became a Congregationalist minister and died in 1964 near Halifax.

A third son, James (9) is living at Long Melford in Suffolk with watch maker Robert Henry Miles (55) and his wife of two years Unity (57). Robert’s son, Reginald Victor Miles (15), a post office messenger is also living with them, along with another boarder Albert Blake, also aged 9.  

Grace Elizabeth (26) married Alexander Crombie (45) in 1908. They are living with their one year old daughter Annie Rebecca at ‘Cottage rear f 89 High Street, Esplanade, Recar, Yorkshire’.

Of Dorothy (23), Gertrude (21) and Olive (20) there is no trace in the 1911 Census. There are possible records of a marriage of a Dorothy H Sunter in 1926 and Gertrude Sunter to John McKinnel in Stockton in 1923.

Jane Ann Sunter also had two step children from Joseph’s first marriage to Isabella.

William Sunter (38) is now living at Redcar at 3 North Terrace Coatham. He is a Labourer cycle manufacturer. He is boarding with 55 years old widow Margaret Graham and her son ‘Jn’ who is 25 and whose occupation is described as ‘slater house’ – possibly slaughter house?

A record of Hannah Sunter cannot be found on the 1911 census.

Which leaves further research questions: 

• Where were Fred’s uncle and aunt’s Meredith?
• Who is missing and where were they?

By 1881 the Merediths, Joseph and Ann were living at Checkhill – not far from where Ashwood Nurseries are today. The Hills were alive and well and living at Highgrove – between Kinver and the Whitington pub.

But tragedy was not far away for the Meredith family. Two young children were to die, whilst there mother was to suffer a still born child within two months.

The family bible records that Ellen L Meredith, just 1 year old when recorded in this sentence, was to die on January 12th 1884. Within a month on 5th February a second blow hit the family. George Meredith, aged just eight days short of his third birthday. Two months after that and a child was delivered still born to Joseph and Ann. A truly tragic time.

The excellent website A Vision of Britain Through Time produces statistics based on enumeration districts gives a good breakdown of age in Kinver at this time. This shows that the distribution of ages was not unusual. Many families did have young children.

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Sadly though the infant mortality rate was also high. One can only assume that the child death rate was also high. But it is doubtful whether the higher child death rates at the time made the loss any less traumatic for the parents of those involved.

1881 Census – Checkhill Kinver

Joseph Meredith, Head, Married, 39, Ag La, Staffordshire, Wollaston

Ann Meredith, Wife, Married, 39, Staffs Enville

Joseph, Son, 10, Scholar, Staffs Kinver

Maria, Daughter, 8, Staffs Brierley Hill

Caroline M Meredith, daughter,6, Scholar, Staffs Brierley Hill

Edward Meredith, son, 3, Staffs Brierley Hill

Ellen L Meredith, Daughter, 1, Staffs Enville

1881 Census – Highgrove, Kinver – High Grove Farm (Ecclesiatical District of Whittington)

Alfred Hill, Head, Married, 28, Shepherd, Staffordshire, Wolverley

Alice Hill, Wife, Married, 26, Warwickshire Stratford on Avon

Ada K Hill, Daughter, 4, Worcestershire, Hagley

Alice M Hill, Daughter 2, Worcestershire, Hagley

1891.  Jack the ripper claims his last victim.  Prime Minister Salisbury rules a country at war with the Boers.  Agatha Christie is born.  But more important events are at work.  On 5th April the sixth full British Census takes place.  In the small Staffordshire village of Kinver farm bailiffs and game keepers mind the land – and romance is in the making. Living in Compton Road Kinver is the Meredith family.  Follow the road up, past the historic rock houses and take the second left to enter the road leading to Greyfields, a large local farm.  This is the home of the Hill family.

In Compton Road lives 14 years old Edward Meredith.  At Greyfields lives the similarly aged Ada Hill.  These two youngsters are destined to marry (1902) and give birth to Freda Meredith.

The head of the Meredith family, Joseph, is gamekeeper.  He looks after an area of countryside land and makes sure…  

“…there is  there is enough game for shooting, or fish for angling, and who actively manages areas of woodland, moorland, waterway or farmland for the benefit of game birds, deer, fish and wildlife in general.Typically, a gamekeeper is employed by a landowner, and often in the UK by a country estate, to prevent poaching, to rear and release game birds such as pheasants and grouse, to control predators such as foxes, to manage habitats to suit game, and to monitor the health of the game.” ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamekeeper> )

Ada’s dad, Alfred is the farm bailiff at Greyfields.  The farm bailiff  is…

” …a man who policed the land belonging to another. Watching out for poachers etc. Usually employed by Gentlemen Landowners i.e owners who employed others to farm the land whilst they partook of other occupations or pastimes.”  <http://genforum.genealogy.com/englandcountry/messages/126078.html> 

“He is responsible to the farmer for the smooth running of the farm and the management of the farm workers.

The employment is only met with of course on farms with large acreages where its workers live in accommodation provided by the farmer as part of their remuneration.

The Bailiff would also have the responsibility of the employee’s wages and have his own office usually within his own accommodation. This type of farm would have been a community by itself and more or less, completely self-contained.”  <http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/Bristol_and_Somerset/2003-06/1056121263>

 The Census Entries

1891 – Compton Road, Kinver

Joseph Meredith, Head, M, 51, Game Keeper, Kinver Staffs

Ann Meredith, Wife, M, 50, Kinver Staffs

Joseph Meredith, Son, 21, Agricultural Labourer, Kinver Staffs

Annie Meredith, Daughter, s, 20, Kingswinford

Caroline Meredith, Daughter, s, 17, Domestic Servant General, Kingswinford

Edward Meredith, Son,s,14, Kingswinford

1891 Census – Kinver, Greyfields

Alfred Hill, Head, M, 40, Farm Bailiff, Kinver Staffordshire

Alice Hill, Wife, M 35, Farm Bailiff, Stratford on Avon

Ada K Hill Daughter, s, 14, Farm Bailiff, Pedmore, Worcestershire

Alice M Hill, Daughter, 12, Farm Bailiff, Pedmore, Worcestershire

Alfred Hill, Son ,7, Kinver Stafford

Agnes Hill, Daughter, 7 Saltley Warwickshire

Frank F Hill, Son, 5, Kinver Staffordshire

Lucy Hill, Daughter, 2, Kinver Staffordshire

Henry E Hill, Son 1, Kinver Staffordshire

The last published census in the UK is 1911. A quick search reveals Fred’s parents, Edward and Ada Keziah were living in Cecil Street , Stourbridge. But is a surprise.

On the night of the census three young females, all in their twenties were lodging with the family. Here is the entry:

• Edward Meredith, Head, Married 8 years, M, 34, Drayman, Staffordshire, Brierley Hill
  
• Ada Meredith, Wife, Married, F, 34, Worcestershire Hagley
• Edward Meredith, Son, M, 4, Worcestershire Stourbridge
• Gertrude Meredith, daughter, F, 1, Worcestershire Stourbridge
• Marguerite Mackenzie, visitor, single, F, 23, Singer, Edinburgh
• Florence Fookes, Visitor, Single, F, 22, Singer, London
• Cameron, Norah, Visitor, Single, F, 22, Singer, Scotland Pinger

But when I showed Fred the entry she was not surprised at all.

“My mother took in performers from the Vaudeville and Music Hall in Stourbridge – where the Odeon used to be” she said. The she seized on another bit of information that revealed the solution to a lifelong mystery.

“Ah Trudy must have been born in 1910, she would never tell me when she was born and I was never quite sure how old she was.”

The family are living at living at 3 Bath Cottage, Cecil Street. As Fred pointed out this was what to become 6 Cecil Street (1,2,3 Cecil Street renumbered 2,4,6 )where Jennifer was born. Fred and Lofty thought about naming her ‘Susan’, but then thought that having and name and address of “Susan Sunter, 6 Cecil Street, Stourbridge” might be taking alliteration a little too far. So Jennifer was chosen an alternative(after Auntie Jenny, Lofty’s sister?).

I remember Auntie Trudy really well. She went on and married Jack Witts and had Martin and Margaret.

Fred was surprised that I remember Uncle Edward (4 at the time of the census). I do remember going with Fred and Lofty to visit him in hospital one summers day. He was later to die of TB.

Edward married Winnie and lived in Bedworth. Winnie was a doting aunt and come to think, wasn’t Winnie who we got Lassie, the family pet from?