Ethel Winifred White.

My Grandma Ethel Winifred White had been born on 13th May 1881. She is registered as ‘Whyte’ some 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. There is no trace of a marriage of their parents (as yet?), though they were together for well over thirty years. Did the person registering them (and paying) not know the father’s surname well? Their father was Ethelbert Ernest White, a master fishmonger. In these days when supermarkets are taking over and the specialist, trained at selecting and purchasing, handling, gutting, boning, filleting, displaying, merchandising and selling their product is becoming increasingly rare. To anyone who felt that the job was ‘only’ a fishmonger, they were one of the earliest guilds established in the City of London, granted a Royal Charter by Edward I and known to have already been in existence for at least 100 years prior to that charter. The Company ranks fourth in the order of precedence of the Livery Companies, making it one of the Great Twelve City Livery Companies. Ethelbert is a White ‘family’ name. Ethel’s Grandfather was Samuel Ethelbert White. He was born about 1828 in Canterbury. A chorister there at six, he becomes a supervisor for Her Majesty’s Excise. Samuel Ethelbert married Catherine Veri Vlieland (daughter of Jerome Nicholas) in Plea Norwich, Norfolk on the 2nd of August 1855. ( Thus the White family feature on the Vlieland blog) Unlike his ancestors, Samuel Ethelbert seemingly did not stay in one place for long. His job as an Inland Revenue Officer of the Excise regularly moved him; sometimes on promotion. Caledonian Mercury (Edinburgh, Scotland), Jan 26, 1857 reports under "Home Intelligence - Inland Revenue Department" that “Samuel Ethelbert White, officer of Gye-Ryde has been appointed on promotion to be officer of Southampton forth division - Isle of White collection". The 1861 census shows them at home with a live in servant. Apart from moves not picked up by the census, they had gone from Norwich to Southampton and on to Winchester, Hampshire by the time their third child, Bertha is born in 1860. They are still at Winchester for the birth of Ethelbert Ernest (on 2 nd September 1862), William Blomfield on the last day of 1864 and finally another Samuel (Athelstan) in 1870. The family have again moved (to Waterside, Jew's Row, Wandsworth London) by the time of the 1871 census. Some time between then and son Ethelbert’s enrolment at Kings School in 1876 the family returned to Samuel’s birthplace, Canterbury. They were still there when he was initiated as a member of Augustine Lodge No 972 in Canterbury on 12th December 1878 at the age of 50. According to the records, the young Ethelbert was living in Canterbury at 6 Westgate Street, Canterbury in 1876 and was sent by his parents to what is understood to be the oldest school in England (Leach – Hist Med Schools - Methuen 1915), The King's School. St. Augustine established a school shortly after his arrival in Canterbury in 597 and it is from this that some claim The King’s School grew - and so thus it flourished in Saxon times. The discipline in the era when Ethelbert attended is described by one source as ‘vicious’. The school archivist and register confirm that Ethelbert was there for a single year, some three years after the infamous disciplinarian Reverend Mitchinson left. Until the Education Act of 1870 education was limited to fee paying schools. Now a ‘free’ education was possible (for younger children) but Ethelbert, well past the minimum age to leave school, attends just such a fee paying school. In the 1890s tuition fees were £20 p.a. and had, according to the archivist, probably not changed much. In case this does not seem a lot, a cottage would cost about £50 to purchase. Boarders paid additional fees of course, but Ethelbert was seemingly a dayboy. As he was not a scholar, his father would have had to pay these fees. He joined in May 1876 and left in April 1877. He was fourteen and a half. In case this seems young to us, few children stayed on at school until ten and the minimum school leaving age (of eleven) was not set until 1880 when education from 5-10 became compulsory; the leaving age not being raised to 12 until 1899). Ethelbert did not join the school until he was thirteen. The list of his ‘peers’, in summer term 1876, most of whom stayed on even longer, is formidable! He leaves the school in April 1877 and in June he is shown buying four brick built cottages, No. 1-4 Caledon Terrace, Nunnery Fields at auction for prices from £128 to £142 each (others, not these, are shown as “bought by agents for”) and two years later he is shown as an agent being warned that other properties have defective drainage by the Canterbury General Purposes Committee. the 1881 census. By then they have moved, back to London, to 9 Alfred St Lucas Terrace, Bow, Stratford-le-Bow. Ethelbert continues to stay with them; a commercial clerk. He soon has children and a new career. The family are at 50 Iliffe Street Newington by the 1891 census. By 1901 they are at 171 Manor Place; not far away. It would seem that Ethelbert was not a sensible name for a successful tradesman to admit to. By the 1908, 1910 and 1912 Kellys Directories and subsequent voters lists he is shown as Edward White but in the 1911 census he is Ernest White (his second name) all at the same 171 Manor Place address. He has still christened his son Cecil Ethelbert White in 1899; though he is now known as Jack (or John). Ethel Winifred begins her working life in the fish shop, as did two of her sisters. 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… There are nine children, with Ethel and Dora the eldest plus Samuel (1884), Frederick (1888), William (1890), Robert (1891), Kate (1893), Eva (1896) and Cecil Ethelbert. There is, so far, no trace of their marriage and her age and place of birth seem different to that shown in the censuses. Experts suggest that very few people ‘cohabited’ at that stage and even a subsequent marriage would not have legitimised an earlier child until 1926. My father used to say that he understood that his grandfather had been disinherited for marrying a barmaid. Was that Ethelbert and Kate? A grandson reports him as a ‘character’ - a ‘Del Boy’ type – always coming home with strange things (like monkeys!) Certainly Ethelbert’s profession was not one which I have traced to any other preceding family member. In the birth certificates of the children his wife is shown as Kate Rycroft; not that usual a name. The census records her as born about 1863 in Tunbridge Wells – not a record I have found; not all still were. There are births of male children to Nelson Rycroft (JP) at Sevenoaks – only ten miles away but, perhaps more likely, a family in Broom Hill, Southborough, immediately to the north of Tunbridge Wells (within its district). Up to eight percent of births went unrecorded at that time and it is possible that she is recorded neither there nor in the immediately following censuses. The family in ‘Tunbridge’ are John, steward to Sir D Salomons M P, his wife Rebecca and son John D – the gardener, age 26, who had been born there. They are the only Rycrofts shown in all Kent in the 1861 census. Their address, then, is shown as Modest Corner Southborough, Tunbridge Wells. Are they Kate’s family? The fact that both son John and daughter Rachel are registered suggests not – as does the age (over 50) of Rebecca, and the fact that Rachel is described as the only direct heir in her Father’s will. The only other Rycroft in Kent in 1871 is Kitty a 79 year old boarder at Common Grove Lodge Southborough. The name Kitty and closeness of a ‘Rycroft’ family could be a clue... There is another John Rycroft in Clapham born about 1827, who like steward/bailiff John is born in Bedfordshire with a son born in Tunbridge Wells. Are they linked to this John – or ‘our Kate’? This son Alfred is also registered. Why can we find no trace of Kate’s birth, family or marriage? Father Samuel Ethelbert’s death is registered in Fulham in 1886. He had made a fresh will only the previous year when he also left the Masons. The family story that Ethelbert Ernest White was ‘disinherited’ is obviously one of those family ‘stories’ as, in Samuel’s will obtained from the probate office, he is left a house in “Ryde Street in the Parish of Saint Dunstans in the City and Borough of Canterbury”. (In 1902 Samuel’s brother Adolphus (musician in ordinary to Queen Victoria) leaves him two further houses). William Blomfield and Samuel Athelstan, his brothers, are also left a house in the same street. Bertha Susannah White (spinster), his second daughter, is left number one Ryde Street. Although the houses are no longer there, pictures of the street in the 1940’s show Ryde Street as a terrace of six houses numbered one to six. The pictures were taken before the demolition of the properties by the council (whilst they were still occupied). Since I have signed a confidentiality agreement confirming that I will neither publish nor copy nor provide copies, I can simply confirm that from the front at street level they simply looked like a terrace of brick/white painted, tiled roof cottages (much like many normal early Victorian ones) BUT from the back and high up it was obvious that five and six were later additions with a separate pitched roof (and numbers 5-6 were not even rendered at the back). It seems clear that Samuel Ethelbert owned the whole original terrace (numbers 1-4) and we know from the surveyors orders for water to be laid on, in May 1876, that these four were almost the last properties in Canterbury to gain access to water.. In addition his eldest son Charles Ethelbert is left his Fathers old residence at 6 Blackfriars (currently tenanted by William Jennings Esquire) together with his main address at 36 Chesilton Road, Munster Place Fulham. His wife also receives his A shares in the Civil Service Supply Association Ltd and the balance in his Inland Revenue Building Society Account and, of course, all the rents and revenues for the rest of her life. After his wife’s death these are also to go to daughter Bertha. Bertha, however, is not to inherit for almost thirty years – more than twenty after her subsequent marriage. At the time of the 1901 census Bertha, her husband and their daughter Helen Bertha age 21 are living in Putney (an area they have been in since the birth of their daughter). Helen Bertha marries Leslie Miller in 1914. Samuel was, perhaps, ‘forward looking’ for his time. Ensuring provision for (seemingly) all his children (one daughter was married and thus not provided for); he also left provision for his spouse for the rest of her life. He does not leave her either a lump sum or a property that might be ‘transferred’ to a second husband but sets aside funds to allow her to receive interest for life; the funds reverting to his daughter after Catherine’s death. Just as it had been ‘fashionable’ for the middle classes to fix a settlement on their female children to ensure that they were not left penniless by the death of their ‘man’ and thus forced to throw themselves upon the mercy of their relatives at such time. Older Daughter Bessy (Elizabeth Mary Mills Annie) was not mentioned in the will. She was shown in the 1881 census living at 9 Alfred St Lucas Terrace, Bow. It had long been the tradition of the ‘old families of England’ that the eldest son received the ‘estate’ (Charles had gained the main residence) unmarried daughters were usually supported through their lives through trusts (Bertha received a house like her brothers and income after her Mothers death) and that married women received nothing. Elizabeth had, indeed, got married to Edgar Wallington in 1884. Including the six houses, the shares and the building society sums, his estate is valued at £489-13-6. ‘Inheritance Tax’ was first introduced as a tax on estates in England and Wales over a certain value from 1796, (then called legacy, succession and estate duties). The value changed over time and the scope of estate duty was extended. Under the 1857 Succession Duty Act estates worth over £20 were taxable (which may illustrate the size of the estate here; bearing in mind that, in the year that Samuel Ethelbert died, a skilled worker could make £2-3 per week, the annual pay of a housemaid was £10-12 and a third of households survived on under 25s a week). Duty was, however, rarely collected on estates valued under £1,500 (before the 1894 budget reforms). Catherine survives him for nearly thirty years. The houses in Ryde Street do not stay in the family for that long. In 1907 the following advertisement appears in the Canterbury papers – “Four empty freehold cottages, Ryde Street, St. Dunstan's Canterbury, what offers. Contact Lepine, 43 Broad Street, Canterbury”. The street, in the St Dunstans area of the city is a historic suburb centred on the route towards London. The 1911 census, the first one filled in by the head of household and the first one detailing years of marriage and numbers of children shows ‘Ernest’, wife Kate (and four of their children still at home) living at 171 Manor Place Southwark (one in a row of combined ‘shops and houses’ with a separate flat at each. Mrs Hill and one other female live in the separate flat and the Whites have six rooms and a fish shop). They are ‘31 years married’ with 10 children (two are deceased). Does the ‘family tale’ explain why Kate’s story is ‘unclear’? Thirty years earlier, in the 1881, census there is no sign of Kate at the address, 30 Wincott Street, (London SE 11) at which she is to give birth a month later. Spouse Ethelbert is shown shown as single (living with parents) at time of 1881 census (though Kate is described as ‘Kate Whyte’ in Ethel’s birth certificate only a month later). He is with Kate and 9 year old child (and other children) at the 1891 census (close by in Southwark) ten years later. The 1920 Hughes Business Directory still shows “White E fishmonger 171 Manor Place, SE17”. His first wife, Kate has died at home in the presence of her husband on 23rd November 1913 from a “cerebral haemorrhage and coma” aged, according to the death certificate, ‘53’ and he has married again at the Southwark Register Office on the first of June 1920. Emily Rosina Miriam Martin is a widow and, at 43, some 14 years younger than her widower husband. The marriage certificate shows her as a “Housekeeper (Domestic)” and her father as (William) George Elston, a vellum binder. Grandfather William Elston was a much travelled and ‘adaptable’ man. The 1851 census shows him as a bricklayer and fishmonger and his children are born in Coleyweston, Rutland, Louth, Northampton and Sheffield. According to another treeholder Grandmother Emily Close was daughter of Laetitia Elizabeth Shield, apparently known as Eliza, born in Kensington at a time when when her father was vicar or rector of Collyweston and who married a ‘slater’ in Collyweston. (At least one interpreter of his handwriting has ‘translated’ his child as ‘Emery’ and not Emily!) 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). In early 2010 when Google maps first pictured it, half the old, decaying parade was boarded up. A shop called ‘Bob White’s’ has earlier opened round the corner from where Ethelbert’s was. It stays open for many years; first shown as an ‘eel and pie’ shop in the commercial directories of the ‘40’s at 11 Kennington Lane SE11; later as a fish and chip shop. The 1926 Post Office Directory still shows him as “White, Edward” of 171 Manor Place Walworth SE17. He is 65 when he dies of myocarditis and chronic bronchitis. The informant is his son from his first marriage, Cecil Ethelbert White, now living at 122 Thorncliffe Road, Clapham Park London SW5. In the certificate Cecil shows his fathers middle name as ‘Edward’ – the name used in the Trade Directories. (His birth certificate shows “Ethelbert E“). He spent his last few days in King's College Hospital, Camberwell. There is no trace of a will. Despite being left property by father and uncle, probate is not needed for Ethelbert’s estate. Did his second wife inherit? Emily dies four years later. There is no probate for her either. I was told that one of the children receives much of his (mostly bamboo) furniture.