This is James whose Irish parents migrated to Dundee, Angus, Scotland as teenagers with their families, possibly in 1845 due to The Great Famine, where over a million people died and millions more emigrated. His Father was from Monaghan and his Mother from Cavan. They were both living in Dundee in the 1851 census, and then married there in 1855 when they were 20 and 22.
After a while his parents John and Margaret moved down to Darlington, Durham in 1860, with James being born shortly afterwards. James was the forth out of their five children.
James is one of my first ancestors that I can find recorded in Battersea. In 1884 he was living at 7 Aegis Grove across the main road from the Dogs Home, when he literally married the girl next door, my 2x Great-Grandmother Louisa Elizabeth, who was living at number 9. He was 22 and she was 24, and they were married just a short walk around the corner at St George’s Church, which was the second oldest church in Battersea at the time. Sadly, the church was later bombed during the war and rebuilt elsewhere, and Aegis Grove has also gone to make way for the Patmore Estate, so all traces of their life there has gone.
James and Louisa went on to have many children, the first being John Henry in 1884 who died as at 12 weeks old, then my 2xGreat-Grandfather James Frederick William was born in Grant Road in 1887. By now Louisa’s Father William lived just around the corner in Livingstone Road, and her Mother Maria had just died. In 1889 they had a daughter Alice Louisa who was born and died as a new-born baby, then Edith came along.
In 1891 they had moved to Stainforth Road and James has said he is a General Labourer. Albert Walter was born in 1892, Charles Sydney in 1893, Winnifred in 1894, Robert in 1898 and finally David was born in 1900 and died in 1901.
In the 1901 census they had moved to Orville Road and James has stated that he is a Scavenger, which I have been informed this is a Street Cleaner and fits in with the photo of him above, and family stories. By now their son James F.W. is 14 years old, and is the oldest of six surviving children. Orville Road was made up of three storey Victorian houses, with each floor rented out to separate families. Needless to say that the area was overcrowded and run down.
Louisa suddenly died in 1902 when she was only 43, after suffering from acute bronchitis for 7 days. I can only imagine how devastating this was for the family emotionally, as well as the hardship it put them under.
James never did remarry and lived until he was 79½ watching many generations of our family grow up in Battersea (more about him in other streets, including Green Lane)
Although I never met any of them, I am so proud of my Battersea heritage, and have often been heard saying that I’m ‘Battersea born n bred’.
Battersea.Blog 