IF BY CHANCE...
A sense of genealogical déjà vu led Ann Larkham to take a closer look at the records. On doing so she realised she’d stumbled on a remarkable coincidence in her family tree…
A sense of genealogical deja vu sets reader Ann Larkham on a fascinating path of discovery
The great fascination of family history, for me, are the millions of decisions, circumstances and chance events that occurred during many centuries to make me, me. If just one of those crossroads had been navigated differently, I would not be here. Whether this is chance or destiny, it is a miracle that I am me … and that you are you.
This story illustrates just one of the circumstances in my miracle: a story about the discovery of a link between two unrelated four-year-old boys who died in 1844 and three octogenarian cousins all meeting together for the first time in 2019. Although the boys were unrelated they had a lot in common. And it is what they had in common that allowed me to find them and to ponder the potential consequences of what I discovered and the effect it could have had on my family.
Genealogical déjà vu
Have you ever had that feeling of déjà vu when looking at genealogical records – that feeling when you think that you recognise a record? Maybe because you had forgotten that you had already searched in this place before?
I had that feeling while searching for a burial record for my 3x great-uncle, Frederick James Holding. Even though I had never looked for the record for Frederick before it seemed remarkably familiar when I found it. The reason for this was quite simple: the entry directly above Frederick’s was for William Webster, who I had looked for previously because he is also my 3x great-uncle but on a different branch of my maternal family tree.
Buried within five days of each other
Two 3x great-uncles of mine, with no relationship to each other but discovered next to each other in a death register, both dying in 1844 in the Parish of St. Ann, Blackfriars, City of London, and being buried within five days of each other.
A quite remarkable coincidence,
even when considering that the infant mortality rate in this area at that time was 14% and of those children who survived to see their first birthday a further 19% would die before their fifth birthday. This means that in a family of seven children, not unusual at the time, the probability was that the parents would bury one of their children within one year of the child’s birth and these same parents would, in all likelihood, bury a second child within five years of that child’s birth.
Indeed, Frederick’s parents did lose a second child, Thomas, who died in 1843 at the age of one. It is too easy to look back on the records of any family and find occurrences of infant and child mortality. It is also too easy from a modern perspective to think that because child mortality was common during this period, parents were less affected by the death of a child than we are today; that today the loss is more devastating. But why should we think that?
A child lost then would have been loved, missed and mourned by parents. That child would have had siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends who all would have felt the loss too. Just because infant and childhood mortality was more common, does not mean that it would have been any easier to bear than the loss of a child today.
Further inspection revealed further similarities
Further inspection of the burial entries for Frederick and William also revealed other similarities.
The abode for both boys was given as Ireland Yard and they were both four years old when they died. If this is not enough to pique the curiosity of a genealogist, I don’t know what is. I had to find out more…
About William & Frederick
William’s and Frederick’s lives were short, meaning they may not have left much of an impression in the genealogical record. Also, they were both born soon after the start of civil registration in 1837 and well before the date that it became compulsory for the parents to register births in 1874 (the onus being on the registrar to seek them out).
Sure enough, when I searched the General Register Office (GRO) indexes there was no sign of either of them. Their older siblings were not registered either but their younger siblings were. During the early years of registration some parents mistakenly believed that baptism led to automatic registration with the GRO, which may explain the boy’s absence from the register. Fortunately, I did find baptism records for both boys which included their birth dates in the margins.
The records for Frederick
The baptism register entry for Frederick James Holding shows that he was born on 13 October 1839 in Ireland Yard to parents Nathaniel and Charlotte and was baptised on 27 October of the same year. Nathaniel was a bricklayer at this time and he had the same occupation in 1841, when he and his family are found on the census of that year. This census provides an idea of the cramped living conditions in Ireland Yard at the time. Frederick is enumerated as living with his parents, his three older brothers, and twelve other people from four different families, all in one household at 13 Ireland Yard.
Frederick’s death certificate shows his life ended on 1 August 1844 when he was four years and ten months old. He died of ‘Small Pox after Vaccination’. His mother was the informant and was present at his death in 12 Ireland Yard.
The records for William
William Webster was slightly younger than Frederick when he died; his baptism record shows he was born on 24 March and baptised on 19 April 1840. William’s parents were George, a coachman, and Sarah. William was born in Water Lane, in the same parish as Ireland Yard, St Ann, Blackfriars.
The Census of 1841 shows that William is still living in Water Lane with an older brother and his parents. When William died at the age of four years and four months on the 27 July 1844, he was living at 5 Ireland Yard. His cause of death was ‘Small Pox not
A child lost then would have been loved, missed and mourned by parents. That child would have had siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends who all would have felt the loss too
previously vaccinated’. His mother, Sarah, was the informant and was present at her son’s death.
The modern map (see below) of Blackfriars shows Ireland Yard in relation to St Paul’s Cathedral and the Parish of St. Ann.
Two young victims of many
So, two young boys, of similar age, dying of Smallpox in Ireland Yard within six days of each other. One was vaccinated against smallpox and one was not.
Smallpox was described by a doctor, W. S. Oke. in 1850:
Of all the diseases that afflict the human body there is none more universal in its attack, more disgusting in its aspect, or more fatal in its results, than the natural smallpox; it is a morbid poison that turns into heaps of living corruption the victims it destroys…. It is a pestilence that spares neither country, nor sex, nor age, nor condition; it sweeps the land like a ‘besom of destruction’ and threatens to annihilate whatever of the human race lies in its way.
This horrific disease was in existence for at least 3,000 years but was declared eradicated by the World Health Organisation in 1979 following a global vaccination programme. To date it is the only human disease to have been eradicated by vaccine.
Dr Jenner’s good work
Smallpox vaccination started with the work of Edward Jenner in the 1790s but was not taken up by Government until 1840 in the form of the first Vaccination Act, just at the time of Frederick’s and William’s births. However, vaccination did not become compulsory in England until 1853. This may explain why one of the boys was vaccinated and the other was not but does not explain why Frederick died after having had the vaccination.
It was believed that ‘when properly performed’ vaccination ‘was a guarantee, generally speaking, against smallpox’. In the first year following the start of vaccination annual deaths from smallpox were reduced from 16,000 to 6,338. Despite this success, people still died after having the vaccination. The Registrar General’s Report, quoted during a reading of the 1856 Vaccination Bill, stated that of 432 deaths from smallpox, 135 had been previously vaccinated. This failure rate may be due to unsuccessful initial vaccination or that immunity obtained from vaccination gradually lessens over time and may only last for a year or two. Either of these factors may account for Frederick’s death despite having been initially vaccinated.
Ideal epidemic conditions
The 1841 Census record for Frederick raises a question about the housing conditions in Ireland Yard at this time. Clearly the conditions were cramped and I was hoping to learn more about the area from Charles Booth’s Poverty Maps but the City of London was not included in this project because it did not house a significant number of residents.
However, an 1849 report from Sir John Simon, the Medical Officer of Health for the City of London, refers to the gases from house drainage and he states:
…as they rise from so many cesspools, and taint the atmosphere of so many houses, they form a climate the most
congenial for the multiplication of epidemic disorders.
This evokes an unpleasant image of unsanitary living conditions in the City of London at the time that Frederick and William lived their short lives, conditions which may have contributed to them both succumbing to smallpox.
Lucky to be here
In addition to Frederick, Nathaniel and Charlotte Holding had five other children including John who is my great-great-grandfather. George and Sarah Webster also had six children including William and his younger sibling Charles, who is also my great-great-grandfather. Given the prevalence of disease, the cramped and unsanitary living conditions, and the high infant and child mortality rates, these families illustrate just two of the many examples of the chance events in the miracle of my existence. If by chance smallpox had taken either of my great-great-grandfathers, as well as or instead of their siblings, Frederick or William, then I would not be here today.
But I am getting ahead of the story. John Holding and Charles Webster, my great-great-grandfathers did survive into adulthood despite the odds. They married and had children of their own, some of whom also survived:
• John Holding married Ann Scott and they had ten children, one of these children, Thomas (my greatgrandfather) married Florence Mary Amy Griffiths and they had seven children: Thomas (see FT,
December 2016), Nellie, Florrie, Albert, Alfred, William (my grandfather) and Minnie.
• Charles Webster, married Emma Frances Pheasant and they had three children, Emma (my greatgrandmother) Joseph and Lydia. Emma married Walter Bridge and they had five children: Frances, Walter, Ethel, Dorothy (my grandmother) and George. When William Holding and Dorothy Bridge, my maternal grandparents, married on 2 August 1931 in Islington, just three miles from Ireland Yard, they united the families of Frederick and William, the two little boys that had died of smallpox 87 years earlier.
However, this is not the end of the story…
William and Dorothy had two children, Derek and Patricia (my mother). Albert, William’s older brother, married and had a son, John. Ethel, Dorothy’s older sister, married another William and they had four children, John, Eunice, Irene and
Patricia. Of these seven cousins, sadly only three are still with us and my research has recently reunited them. Last summer my mother was able to meet again with her cousin John on her father’s side of the family, who she met for the first time in 2016 (see FT, November 2017), and her cousin Patricia on her mother’s side of the family, who she had grown up with and been evacuated with during the Second World War, but had not been in touch with for over forty years.
The family tree (see above) shows the relationship between Frederick Holding and William Webster (marked in blue) and the three cousins, John, Patricia and Patricia (in green). The direct line only is included, except for Frederick and William.
The joy of bringing these octogenarian cousins together and sharing the remarkable story of their young relatives from 175 years ago was a delight and a privilege. John learned of his great-great-uncle Frederick, Patricia of her great-great-uncle William, and Patricia, my mother, learned of both of her great-greatuncles and how her parents were the link that united the families.
We think of Covid-19 as new and, as often quoted, ‘unprecedented’. The virus itself may be new but living with and dying from infectious diseases is not. In London during the period 1628-1840 there were 14 ‘serious smallpox epidemics’. By chance my ancestors navigated these and a multitude of other obstacles to become part of my miracle just as your ancestors navigated their own obstacles to be part of your miracle. This leads me to consider how many ‘might have been miracles’ have been erased by infectious diseases in the past and during this current pandemic. It truly is a miracle that we are all here to tell our stories.
About the author
Ann Larkham has been researching her family tree for over 10 years and has a post-graduate certificate in genealogy for the University of Strathclyde.