Beryl Stradling (stradling @t ntlworld.com) is trying to find out more about the Hertfordshire connections of her great-grandparents George Ford and Elizabeth Clayton. We have exchanged some emails rather than reproduce the correspondence it is more appropriate to summarize what is known about the family, particularly while they were living in Hertfordshire.

No records have been found of either George or Elizabeth before the  birth of their eldest son, Archibald Harry, at Old Ford Road, Bow, in 1885. Ada (1887), Delores (Florence) (1888) and Rose Hannah (1889) were born at Usher Road, Bow, and the family have been located in the 1891 census. According to the 1901 census Daisy was born 1892 and Lily was born in 1896 - both in St Albans.  George Colston was born 22nd December 1898 at Lamb Lane, Redbourn (from birth certificate), and Charles was born early in 1901, also at Redbourn.

However by the time of the 1901 census (from index only) they were at 10 Longmire Road, in the Parish of St Peter, St Albans, the family consisting of:

A Note on Longmire Road: Longmire Road, St Albans, no longer appears on modern roadmaps. It is not shown on the 1897 OS map, although the nearby Ramsbury Road is marked out for development on what I believe was called the Priory estate.  Longmire Road ran from the end of Cornwall Road, parallel to the River Ver, overlooking Sopwell Nunnery. and was connected to Cottonmill Lane by a footpath. It would appear that the area between Longmire Road and Cottonmill Lane was developed into housing some 20-40 years ago and given the name Riverside Road. This name now extends to include the former Longmire Road. When the Ford family moved there it may well have been into a newly constructed house.

There were three more children - Joseph Stanley (1902, born Poplar). Mabel (1903, born St Albans?, birth certificate awaited for conformation) and James (1905).

George (senior) is then recorded in November 1905, in the labour colony at Sumpner's Farm, near Laindon, Essex, which was run as an extension of the Poplar, Middlesex, workhouse. [See Peter Higginbotham's Workhouses for a detailed account of this short lived experiment.] Three of the children were admitted to Langley House (for pauper children in Poplar), East India Dock Road, in November 1905, and there was a history of admissions and discharges over the next few years. When they were aged 13 Charles went to Canada with a group of Barnado's boys, and George joined the Navy.

----------------------

 Now to the initial question, which was that Elizabeth spent some time in a psychiatric hospital near St Albans - but the date was unknown and the hospital unidentified.

Details of the hospitals in the area are given in "Out of Sight, Out of Mind", which gives some information on the availability of records. Leavesden was opened in 1869 for pauper imbeciles from the Metropolitan area and was really for people with life-long learning difficulties. Hill End was founded in 1899 and was for people resident in Hertfordshire. Napsbury was founded in 1898 specifically for people from Middlesex. Initially I suspect many of the inmates would have previously been long-term occupants of various workhouses.

Clearly the family was mobile. Both parents came from the West of England, there are two know addresses in Bow, an as yet undetermined address in St Albans, an address in the centre of Redbourn, an address on a new housing estate on the (then) outskirts of St Albans, then to Poplar. Children were born at regular intervals and the biggest gap of 4 years could be explained by an infant death - very common at this period.  ... And then things went terribly wrong in 1905.

The family tradition is hazy (I am sure everyone involved wanted to draw a veil over it) but Beryl describes the incident which was supposed to have led to Elizabeth being sent to an institution as follows:

I believe she was confined as she stole one of her husband George's chickens to feed the children - he had her put in prison for it and when she got out she gouged his eye out and he had her committed.  I think that's how the story went.

Even if the details is not correct, it suggests a serious domestic incident, not necessarily triggered by Elizabeth, in Poplar. (At the time many people would still have accepted the saying "A woman, a dog, and a walnut tree, the more you beat them the better they be.") If Elizabeth did something which resulted in George being blinded in one eye she could well have been put into Napsbury, near St Albans, and he could have been unable to see well enough to continue making boots. The family would become destitute - George would still be physically fit enough to be sent to the Laindon work camp, and the children would have gone into a home for pauper children, to be found employment when they were 13.

Assuming the incident occurred after James was born (and his birth certificate should give you the date and place) you should be able to tie the incident down to a few months in 1905, presumably in Poplar.

If this analysis is correct the fact that Elizabeth went to a mental institution near St Albans has nothing to do with the fact that at one time she lived in St Albans.

----------------------

So what next. In Hertfordshire (and this web site is basically concerned with this county) it may be possible to fill in some address details from other birth certificates, but this will tell you nothing extra about George & Elizabeth's origins. However you should be aware that another George Ford was living in St Albans at the same time - he was the City Surveyor, Sanitary Inspector & Inspector of Lodgings Houses and all references to "George Ford" on my own research files refer to him, and not your ancestor.

In Middlesex, particularly relating to Poplar, there could be magistrate court records, prison (Holloway??), press records as well as Poplar Union papers (not just the Workhouse papers, as Elizabeth may have been sent to Napsbury without going through the workhouse.) Some of these may include some references to the origins of the couple. The links on Out of Sight, Out of Mind may help you to find out whether there are any surviving patient records for the period - and I note that for Napsbury admission and discharge papers for the period you are interested in are in the London Metropolitan Archives. You may also find valuable information on The Workhouses. In addition it might be worth checking the Workhouse records to see if they say anything about George's physical condition - and if he was blind in one eye.

There are pages for St Albans, Redbourn, and the Mental Asylums in Hertfordshire

If you can add to the information given above tell me.

HOME