Q&A
Absent kin, First World War vets and ‘Ukrainian Willie’
‘Mary Ann may have been brought up in a workhouse’
QMy great grandmother was Mary Ann Hall, born in 1862. She married Daniel Thomas Savory in Walworth, South-East London, in 1884, but she is missing from the 1871 and 1881 censuses.
On her wedding certificate, she gives her address as 47 Vicarage Road. I can’t find this address on the 1881 census, but I know that 47 Vicarage Grove existed. She gives her father’s name as Thomas, deceased, but I can’t find a Thomas Hall with a daughter who was called Mary Ann.
I did find a birth registration for 1862 in Newington, but the parents were John Hall and Mary Pamphilon. I found a Mary Ann and siblings in the workhouse, but I believe that these are Mary Pamphilon’s children.
I would love to find out more about Mary Ann and her family.
Wendy Shepherd
AMary Ann Hall’s birthdate is clearly written on the 1939 Register as 8 May 1862. Although not all of the dates given in the register are accurate, it would be sensible to search for a birth certificate (or a baptism record with the birth recorded) that gives this date.
Mary Ann appears to have been born in the Camberwell area. However, the only Mary Ann Hall with a father named Thomas that I found in the collection of London Metropolitan Archives baptism records available on ancestry.co.uk was born in 1861.
You mention a certificate for a Mary Ann Hall, whose birth was registered in the September quarter of 1862 in the Newington registration district, which covers Camberwell. However, the father was John Hall. The significant detail of this certificate would be the date of birth. What was it?
There is an online Ancestry tree (username ‘lindaharwood4’) with details of that family, but no mention of Mary Ann. This John Hall appears to have died in 1862 – suggesting that whoever his daughter Mary Ann was, she would not have known him. If the information is correct, it seems that the family struggled after John died, with the mother being recorded alone on the census, as a boarder and working as a charwoman. This may indicate that Mary Ann was brought up in a workhouse or with other relatives.
The online tree has a photograph of Alice Isabella Hall, who appears to have been this Mary Ann’s sister. The photograph shows Alice in old age and with a nose similar to that of your great grandmother. It might be worth contacting the descendants of this family to compare notes.
Emma Jolly