Some quickie answers re St Albans, Berkhamsted & Tring

In addition to the answers I publish on this site there are often other perfectly good questions which are handled by emails, because I can only give limited help.

Hannah is researching a house on the estate which was built between Sandridge Road, St Albans and St Saviour's Church in the 1881-1901 period. While I researched parts of this estate in my studies of Bernards Heath, I did not collect any information on the house in question although its location suggests it might have been built as a manager's house in connection with the nearby brickworks. Fortunately Hannah lives in St Albans so I was able to tell her that the St Albans Central Library has copies of old street directories on the open shelves from 1880 and she could probably find the answer to her question by looking through these.

Robert's ancestor, John Walker was born in about 1735 and lived in Harlington, Bedfordshire - but has drawn a blank when trying to find information on his birth in the Bedfordshire records. He wrote asking if a John Walker baptised at Berkhamsted St Peter in 1733 could be his man and I had to tell him that the Militia Lists and a will suggested he was a butcher who stayed in Berkhamsted.

Nicky is researching a house and while she has tracked down several old maps she has been able to find where there is a copy  of the Tring Tithe Map from the 1840s. In theory there should be three but all seem to be "missing". Tim has provided some additional information relevant to the Tring Town Council records and if a copy turns up, preferably with the schedule, I will happily publish details on this site.

Little Hadham has been upgraded - and a new UNCLE link

I recently acquired a 100 year old post card of The Ford, Little Hadham, which had been posted by Kathleen Jones, the housekeeper to the widower, Charles Poile - who was giving her a week off at Christmas. Kathleen's mother was Sarah Lydia Uncle so may be related to the family earlier described in UNCLE, Much Hadham, early 19th century.  The card was sent to Nellie, the wife of Leonard Ballard, a London Metropolitan Police Constable, and while Kitty and Nellie were obviously friends the nature of the friendship is not known. The card was published by the J. Houghton, of the Little Hadham post office.

I used the opportunity to upgrade the Little Hadham pages - providing it with a dedicated menu and creating a new page for the pictures of St Edmunds Church (now rededicated to St Cecilia) 

The Shah has been added to the pub crawl through Barley.

Why not go back 100 years, and while walking through Barley stop and be greeted by Benjamin Bullen of the Shah, Nathan Chapman of the King William IV, Alfred Stanley Oxley of the Fox and Hounds, and William George Saggs of the Waggon and Horses. A quick detour down Church End will find John Dilly ready to welcome you at the Three Crowns, while continuing along the London road you will find William West at the Woolpack, followed by James Chuck at the Chequers. If you are still thirsty you might backtrack to Smith's End to enjoy the company of Jacob Hayes at the Hoops.

Candles for Lucy

I pause at the computer and look out of the window and into the garden. The horse chestnut tree is in flower with more florets than ever. 

Memories come flooding back. 

Nearly forty years ago there was a campaign to encourage primary school children to plant trees and Lucy got a plastic coffee cup, some compost, and a conker and the tree is the result.

Of course Lucy never saw the tree in flower, and ever since her death I have done what I can to try and make sure that there are adequate facilities for the mentally ill in Hertfordshire.

The present economic cutbacks and other changes are making things far worse, as a lot of people are suffering from stress. As a result the demand for Mind's telephone advice service has doubled over the last four years, while NHS services are being squeezed and making less money available to charities which provide community support for people with difficulties.

Lucy almost certainly would not have died if she had proper support in a crisis rather than being thrown in the Muppet House - so  please consider making a donation to the Herts Mind Network, to National Mind, or to a local charity in the area where you live.

It may help to prevent what happened to Lucy happening to someone else.

When things get difficult - Which Joseph is which??

Diane has hit a brick wall. Joseph Norris married Mary Wheeler and had a number of children  baptised in Berkhamsted St Peter. The problem is that there were two baptisms for Joseph, and a detailed analysis is unable to reliably identify which Joseph married Mary. My answer NORRIS, Berkhamsted & Northchurch, 18th century contains information which could be relevant to anyone with a similar problem in the 18th century - when there is no census returns to help, but where militia lists can be useful. The case is a classic  Right Name, Wrong Body" , and all I can suggest is what I do when I hit a serious brick wall in my own research.

Did Theresa remarry leaving her first husband in Leavesdon Asylum?

Alison reported that Louis Flatau was married Theresa Newstadt in 1881 but in 1892 Theresa remarried Albert Waddell but the only death found for anyone called Louis Flatau was in 1906 at Leavesden Asylum. I checked the 1891 and 1901 censuses and there was no sign of any Lewes/Louis Flatau or any likely mispelling of Flatau in ee Asylum. In any case the death indexes contain many errors and the failure to find a death circa 1890 does not mean the he did not die then, and other records support the idea that he was dead. My first reaction was to suggest that the Louis Flatau whose death was recorded in 1906 could not be him. However a later rethink, suggested there is something of interest. As a result I have appended an expanded and tidied up version of my original rough notes to the detailed analysis of the Louis Flatau case.

Leavesden Lunatic Asylum circa 1915

Basically there was a patient in Leavesden  in 1901 who fits the general description of Louis Flatau (age, occupation, place of birth) but his name is recorded as Louis Woolf.  So what - there were hundreds of people in Leavesdon which came from exactly the same part of London - so it could just be a coincidence. But wait a moment. Louis Flatau's mother's maiden name was Woolf, so perhaps Louis's full name was Louis Woolf Flatau and the Flatau was dropped when her was admitted to Leavesden. The complication is that the Flatau and Woolf families seem to have been immigrants from Eastern Europe, living in a close-knit community and there are a number of genuine Louis Woolfs who could also have been the patient in Leavesden Asylum.

Don't assume the information you have is correct.

Keith reported that his ancestor Irving Henry Fisher was born in October 1844 at Standon, Hertfordshire, and emigrated to America between 1867 and 1877.  He wrote that he could not find details of Irving's birth or parents and asked for help. While Fisher is quite a common name Irving is unusual and the Irving Henry combination is probably unique. I quickly confirmed that a straight search of the online censuses and FreeBMD drew a bank.

Fortunately the newly released baptism records on FindMyPast came up with an "Irving Henry Fisher" who was baptised on 30 October 1842 at St Mary's, Ealing, Middlesex, the son of Michael and Adelaide Fisher. Using this new information allowed me to find the registration of the birth of  "Irven Fisher" at Brentford in Oct-December 1842. Irving's parents Michael and Adelaide Fisher could quickly be found in the 1841 census, revealing that Michael was an agricultural labourer. The 1851 census showed 8 year old "Ervin Fisher" in Ealing with his widower father, a housekeeper who was to become his step-mother, and several siblings.

The 1861 drew a complete blank with a search for "Irving" and variants - despite using all the tricks of the trade for likely errors, as he was not with his father and step-mother. So I decided to look for "Henry."  I could not find a "Henry Fisher" born in Ealing and there were too many born in Middlesex of about the right age to be absolutely sure. However many could be ruled out simply by looking at the full household details and there was a promising 17 year old "Henry Fisher" candidate incarcerated in a reformatory in Wandsworth, Middlesex. If the reformatory did not reform him he may have had a good reason for wanting to leave England ...

There are some lessons to be learnt from this example. Around the middle of the 19th century many working class families could not read and write and less common names were often misspelt (and also sometimes misindexed). In addition people who left the country with a blot on their character could well have provided deliberately inaccurate information in their new country, to make it harder for their past in England to be traced. This may not have occurred in the case - as I am not 100% sure that the "Henry" in Wandsworth was "Irving Henry" from Ealing. One the other hand, in the days before centralised computer records, claiming you were from a completely different county could be sufficient to separate you from your past.

An Accident on the Railway in 1841

The Reformer reports on a railway accident 
near Broxbourne in 1841.

Many workers got injured in building the railways and it is probably impossible to identify James Thompson/Green, assuming either was his real name.

Grissell & Peto were major building contractors - but do you know of any other work they did in Hertfordshire?

Alas poor Tom, who died at Hunsdon in 1735

A typical 18th century gravestone

THOMAS KING. OB. 1735

Here lies Tom King old Dad of fame

Who knew his Gun and eke his Game

The fact whereof both Ball's and Luton

Now can fully prove the truth on

He loved his Bottle and his Friend

Which he enjoy'd unto his End

He Dy'd at last alas poor Tom!

Behold at last his Slab and Tomb.

An epitaph from Hunsdon recorded in Cream of Curiosity

Pannonica Rothschild & Tring Park

Last September I posted details of the book Nica's Dream, The life and Legend of the Jazz Baroness, by David Kastin. Now Hannah Rothschild has just published a book The Baroness: The search for Nica, the rebellious Rothschild. and I note that the Daily Telegraph Review includes the following:

Appropriately enough for someone who would live by night and be drawn to the flames, Pannonica was named after a moth: her father, Charles, was an entomologist and the childhood home, Tring Park in Aylesbury – one of the “huge three-dimensional calling cards” built by the Rothschilds to announce their arrival – also housed her uncle Walter’s private collection of stuffed kangaroos, whales and giant tortoises. Nica would later live in what Hannah calls “an animated version” of Tring Park, when she shared her modest New Jersey house with 300 or so cats.

Tring Park is not in Aylesbury, Bucks, it is in Tring, Herts, and one of things that distinguishes it from the other Rothschild houses in the area is that it is not "one of the three dimensional calling cards built by the Rothschilds to announce their arrival."  It was a much older house which was given what could be considered a comparatively conservative upgrade. I don't know if these errors are in the book or in the review but such inaccuracies in facts which are trivially easy to check give me no confidence in the reliability of the book. It will be interesting to see if the Daily Telegraph publishes a correction.