She is the daughter of Ethelbert Ernest White, master fishmonger, and granddaughter of Samuel Ethelbert White
and Catherine Veri Vlieland. Coincidentally, this day, the 13th May is also to be the birthday of her son Ethelbert Blomfield’s future Wife, Queenie Maple. Even more of a coincidence Ethel’s family nickname is recorded as Queenie.
Ethel is registered as ‘Whyte’ 41 days after her birth – just before the family would have been fined for non-registration. Younger sister Dora (married name Dora Silk) is also registered as ‘Whyte’ in 1883.
Although the April 1881 census shows Ethelbert’s family at 9 Alfred St Lucas Terrace, Bow Aka St Mary Stratford-Le-Bow, Ethel is born a month later at 30 Wincott Street, Kennington Road, Lambeth, some way away. That address, at census date, had different unrelated people lodging there and does not seem to be a likely place for an expectant mother to be sent away to give birth. A lot of working late Victorians moved from place to place and the censuses can only give a snapshot of a short time in their lives.
By the time of the 1891 census they are at 50, Iliffe Street, Newington, Southwark and not far away ten years later at 162 Manor Place, Southwark. They soon settle down above their new shop at 171 Manor Place, Southwark and that is the address shown in the Parish Register when Ethel marries David William Dunn on 27 March 1902 by banns. The witnesses are SA White and E White. Their fathers are shown as: Thomas Dunn Deceased and Ethelbert Ernest White General Merchant Thomas Dunn, survivor of the SS Atlantic disaster who died in Margate in 1899, has also already featured in the blog.
Ethel had begun her working life in the family fish shop, as did two of her sisters. Not surprisingly with his shop downstairs curing its own fish, the smell was ‘strong’. The shop sold raw fish and cooked fish and chips (the latter cut on a fascinating old machine). Later on, in Croydon, two of the brothers would, themselves, own a fish shop not far away from, by then widowed, Ethel Winifred Dunn and her family.
The happy couple again move on. Baptism and birth certificates show them at 18 Handford Road, Clapham, 5 Leyton Park Road, Leyton and 12 Stansfield Road, Brixton before finally settling down in a new house at 66 Andalus Road, Stockwell, where son Ethelbert Blomfield Dunn (who has also featured in the blog) is born.
The family continues to grow. Ethel was one of 9 children and soon has eight of her own:
Dorothy Winifred: 23/06/1903 (Lambeth Jul/Sep 1903 vol 1d P 425)
Hilda May: 12/11/1904 (West Ham Oct/Dec 1904 vol 4a P302)
Elsie Kate: 27/12/1905 (Lambeth Jan/Mar 1906 vol 1d P 460)
Thomas William: 12/03/1908 (Lambeth Apr/Jun 1908 vol 1d P 366)
Ethelbert Blomfield: 04/01/1910 (Jan/Mar 1910 vol 1d P372)
Frederick Marshall: 04/09/1913 (Lambeth Jul/Sep 1913 vol 1d P764)
Alexander Wallace: 13/12/1914 (Lambeth Jan/Mar 1915 vol 1d P688)
Eva Doreen: 04/05/1917 (Croydon Apr/Jun 1917 vol 2a p 373)
Elsie, Thomas, Blom, Marshall and Alec had all been baptised at St Mary Kennington Park Road, Newington, Southwark. As you can see, the family has then moved, during World War One, to a new four storey house in Croydon. The children had meals in their nursery on the top floor and were called down to see their parents after dinner and before bed (effectively ‘for inspection’).
Husband David William, a licensed victualler, becomes an unpaid Special Constable. It is eighty years since David’s great great grandfather Thomas Dunn was a Constable in Margate.
A vital link in the London to Brighton rail link in the mid-1800s, it became the largest town in Surrey. Although their Lower Addiscombe Road, Croydon house is a block away from Addiscombe railway station, it is far more likely that David is guarding Croydon Airport, effectively, THE ‘London Airport’ for two world wars against the German aerial might. Croydon was bombed by Zeppelins in October 1915, and nine civilians died. It also received further raids in 1916.
The bombing of London, by zeppelins, with its consequent civilian death and destruction, though not as comprehensive as that in the second war, was in some ways more significant since people had only just got used to ‘flying machines’. To this day, nearly one hundred years later, refurbished London buildings carry a plaque proclaiming ‘attacked by zeppelin’.
Tthe first election in Britain where all adult men and some women could vote followed soon after the end of the Great War. Ethel Winifred was a registered voter for the Poll of December 1910. Within weeks she would be a widow.
David catches ‘Spanish’ flu. According to family history, he goes back on duty even though unwell and becomes simply another statistic of the world’s greatest great flu epidemic in which five percent of the entire world population died – even more than in the time of the black death.
The Great War caused fifteen million fatalities. Estimated deaths by flu at this time are between at least fifty up to one hundred million souls worldwide. India alone had between seventeen and twenty million deaths. 228,000 souls died in Britain during the pandemic.
Initially, the UK papers were censored, because of the hostilities. So, despite the severe outbreaks in Britain and France and the trenches, the first reports in the press were of the outbreak in Spain, in which one of the first fatalities was the King of Spain. Although the Prime Minister, Lloyd George, caught it (and survived) this was also suppressed and the name ‘Spanish Flu’ stuck. Even President Woodrow Wilson suffered from the flu in early 1919 while negotiating the crucial treaty of Versailles to end the World War.
As the war reached its final stages it seemed to be running its course. The end of the War, however, led to victory parties and more people on the streets. The second wave of ‘Spanish Flu’ was more virulent and now affected people in the prime of life. At its peak at the beginning of November 1918 approaching a quarter of a percent of the population of the UK died in a single week. Cinemas, Schools and Theatres closed, but still the virus spread.
After the lethal second wave struck in the autumn of 1918, the disease died down abruptly in Britain. New cases almost dropped to nothing. The end of the flu epidemic and the return to ‘normality’ was announced. The third wave began in February 1919 and killed more than a thousand in Manchester alone.
The Police Force was a ‘dangerous’ place for contagion. The first newspaper article that I researched noted that 1,400 Metropolitan Police had been off sick from influenza the previous day. Croydon was part of the Metropolitan Police Force.
Although the third wave was not as destructive as the second, this could have been because, this time round, some of the lessons had been learned; more people stayed in, less got infected. For a licensed victualler with eight young children; for a Special Constable in a situation where the force was overstretched, staying at home was probably not a ‘possibility’. The ‘third peak’ was the week that David William died.
David dies on 27/02/1919 was laid to rest in grave 10565 section K5 at Mitcham Road Cemetery on the following Wednesday – the fifth of March. It was one of nine funerals reported in that paper that day alone in that single cemetery (the following day there were almost double that number buried). Pages of deaths in the papers had been common throughout the war but so many were still dying that pages of such Cemetery Reports were in most papers every week.
Ethel Winifred is still under forty and has 8 young children to support, the youngest just about walking. Probate was granted promptly on 15th March. His net estate totalled £393.5 6d. The King instituted a silver medal for the longest serving unpaid Specials in September 1919. The family would not even get that. She had, I understand, a small pension from David William’s work but even her letters during the second World War make clear that “we can manage but have to look after every penny now”….
A widow for nearly a quarter of a century, Ethel lives the rest of her life in Croydon. She dies on Thursday the eight of July 1943, aged 61. Though suffering from diabetes and asthma, her death was a shock to her family. The war still raged and the family would not have a quiet time with their grief. Indeed, Croydon suffered a sharp daylight raid on the day following her death with the planes bombing and machine gunning the streets. An aircraft factory was hit.
Ethel Winifred Dunn was buried in plot N193 at St John the Evangelist Shirley, Croydon on 14 Jul 1943.
Ethel is registered as ‘Whyte’ 41 days after her birth – just before the family would have been fined for non-registration. Younger sister Dora (married name Dora Silk) is also registered as ‘Whyte’ in 1883.
Although the April 1881 census shows Ethelbert’s family at 9 Alfred St Lucas Terrace, Bow Aka St Mary Stratford-Le-Bow, Ethel is born a month later at 30 Wincott Street, Kennington Road, Lambeth, some way away. That address, at census date, had different unrelated people lodging there and does not seem to be a likely place for an expectant mother to be sent away to give birth. A lot of working late Victorians moved from place to place and the censuses can only give a snapshot of a short time in their lives.
By the time of the 1891 census they are at 50, Iliffe Street, Newington, Southwark and not far away ten years later at 162 Manor Place, Southwark. They soon settle down above their new shop at 171 Manor Place, Southwark and that is the address shown in the Parish Register when Ethel marries David William Dunn on 27 March 1902 by banns. The witnesses are SA White and E White. Their fathers are shown as: Thomas Dunn Deceased and Ethelbert Ernest White General Merchant Thomas Dunn, survivor of the SS Atlantic disaster who died in Margate in 1899, has also already featured in the blog.
Ethel had begun her working life in the family fish shop, as did two of her sisters. Not surprisingly with his shop downstairs curing its own fish, the smell was ‘strong’. The shop sold raw fish and cooked fish and chips (the latter cut on a fascinating old machine). Later on, in Croydon, two of the brothers would, themselves, own a fish shop not far away from, by then widowed, Ethel Winifred Dunn and her family.
The happy couple again move on. Baptism and birth certificates show them at 18 Handford Road, Clapham, 5 Leyton Park Road, Leyton and 12 Stansfield Road, Brixton before finally settling down in a new house at 66 Andalus Road, Stockwell, where son Ethelbert Blomfield Dunn (who has also featured in the blog) is born.
The family continues to grow. Ethel was one of 9 children and soon has eight of her own:
Dorothy Winifred: 23/06/1903 (Lambeth Jul/Sep 1903 vol 1d P 425)
Hilda May: 12/11/1904 (West Ham Oct/Dec 1904 vol 4a P302)
Elsie Kate: 27/12/1905 (Lambeth Jan/Mar 1906 vol 1d P 460)
Thomas William: 12/03/1908 (Lambeth Apr/Jun 1908 vol 1d P 366)
Ethelbert Blomfield: 04/01/1910 (Jan/Mar 1910 vol 1d P372)
Frederick Marshall: 04/09/1913 (Lambeth Jul/Sep 1913 vol 1d P764)
Alexander Wallace: 13/12/1914 (Lambeth Jan/Mar 1915 vol 1d P688)
Eva Doreen: 04/05/1917 (Croydon Apr/Jun 1917 vol 2a p 373)
Elsie, Thomas, Blom, Marshall and Alec had all been baptised at St Mary Kennington Park Road, Newington, Southwark. As you can see, the family has then moved, during World War One, to a new four storey house in Croydon. The children had meals in their nursery on the top floor and were called down to see their parents after dinner and before bed (effectively ‘for inspection’).
Husband David William, a licensed victualler, becomes an unpaid Special Constable. It is eighty years since David’s great great grandfather Thomas Dunn was a Constable in Margate.
A vital link in the London to Brighton rail link in the mid-1800s, it became the largest town in Surrey. Although their Lower Addiscombe Road, Croydon house is a block away from Addiscombe railway station, it is far more likely that David is guarding Croydon Airport, effectively, THE ‘London Airport’ for two world wars against the German aerial might. Croydon was bombed by Zeppelins in October 1915, and nine civilians died. It also received further raids in 1916.
The bombing of London, by zeppelins, with its consequent civilian death and destruction, though not as comprehensive as that in the second war, was in some ways more significant since people had only just got used to ‘flying machines’. To this day, nearly one hundred years later, refurbished London buildings carry a plaque proclaiming ‘attacked by zeppelin’.
Tthe first election in Britain where all adult men and some women could vote followed soon after the end of the Great War. Ethel Winifred was a registered voter for the Poll of December 1910. Within weeks she would be a widow.
David catches ‘Spanish’ flu. According to family history, he goes back on duty even though unwell and becomes simply another statistic of the world’s greatest great flu epidemic in which five percent of the entire world population died – even more than in the time of the black death.
The Great War caused fifteen million fatalities. Estimated deaths by flu at this time are between at least fifty up to one hundred million souls worldwide. India alone had between seventeen and twenty million deaths. 228,000 souls died in Britain during the pandemic.
As the war reached its final stages it seemed to be running its course. The end of the War, however, led to victory parties and more people on the streets. The second wave of ‘Spanish Flu’ was more virulent and now affected people in the prime of life. At its peak at the beginning of November 1918 approaching a quarter of a percent of the population of the UK died in a single week. Cinemas, Schools and Theatres closed, but still the virus spread.
After the lethal second wave struck in the autumn of 1918, the disease died down abruptly in Britain. New cases almost dropped to nothing. The end of the flu epidemic and the return to ‘normality’ was announced. The third wave began in February 1919 and killed more than a thousand in Manchester alone.
The Police Force was a ‘dangerous’ place for contagion. The first newspaper article that I researched noted that 1,400 Metropolitan Police had been off sick from influenza the previous day. Croydon was part of the Metropolitan Police Force.
Although the third wave was not as destructive as the second, this could have been because, this time round, some of the lessons had been learned; more people stayed in, less got infected. For a licensed victualler with eight young children; for a Special Constable in a situation where the force was overstretched, staying at home was probably not a ‘possibility’. The ‘third peak’ was the week that David William died.
David dies on 27/02/1919 was laid to rest in grave 10565 section K5 at Mitcham Road Cemetery on the following Wednesday – the fifth of March. It was one of nine funerals reported in that paper that day alone in that single cemetery (the following day there were almost double that number buried). Pages of deaths in the papers had been common throughout the war but so many were still dying that pages of such Cemetery Reports were in most papers every week.
Ethel Winifred is still under forty and has 8 young children to support, the youngest just about walking. Probate was granted promptly on 15th March. His net estate totalled £393.5 6d. The King instituted a silver medal for the longest serving unpaid Specials in September 1919. The family would not even get that. She had, I understand, a small pension from David William’s work but even her letters during the second World War make clear that “we can manage but have to look after every penny now”….
A widow for nearly a quarter of a century, Ethel lives the rest of her life in Croydon. She dies on Thursday the eight of July 1943, aged 61. Though suffering from diabetes and asthma, her death was a shock to her family. The war still raged and the family would not have a quiet time with their grief. Indeed, Croydon suffered a sharp daylight raid on the day following her death with the planes bombing and machine gunning the streets. An aircraft factory was hit.
Ethel Winifred Dunn was buried in plot N193 at St John the Evangelist Shirley, Croydon on 14 Jul 1943.
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