Can you tell me more about my elusive grandfather?

QI have hit a brick wall researching my maternal grandfather, Herbert John Bull.

His death certificate shows that he died in Isleworth, Brentford on 12 October 1940, aged 63. He was on the 1939 Register in Romford, Essex, giving his birth as 25 January 1877, but I cannot find any other definite evidence of him.

He was married to Kate Wells (born in Brighton in 10 January 1891), but I cannot find a marriage record. Their first child, Irene, was born in Ipswich in 1916.

According to my mother, he ran away from home as a boy, became a gambler, and worked on amusements at Clactonon-Sea during the 1920s and 1930s. I suspect he may have changed his name as Herbert ‘John Bull’ is unusual! Apparently he was originally from Gloucestershire. Nigel Mills

ACatherine Wells had previously been married to David Cramb Baldy in Wandsworth according to the June Quarter of 1912. He was a chief steward in the Merchant Marine and died at sea in 1916 when his ship, the SS Rappahannock was torpedoed.

In 1918, Catherine – then the wife of Herbert John Bull – was granted the administration of David’s effects valued at £ 80. The administration appears in the National Probate Calendar. Catherine had a daughter by David Cramb Baldy, Irena L Baldy, whose birth in Ipswich is registered in the December 1916 quarterly index.

The Mercantile Marine memorial register at Trinity House ( trinityhouse.co.uk) reveals that David Cramb Baldy was born in Dundee and that Catherine Bull’s address was 29 Salisbury Road, Ipswich, Suffolk.

In the next quarter after Irene was born, March 1917, there is a marriage for Catherine Baldy and Herbert John Bull, also in Ipswich. This will give you Herbert John’s father’s name. Herbert John Bull appears in the 1939 Register for Romford, Essex, in a household headed by Lawrence H Scattergood, who had married Irene L Bull (or Baldy) in Colchester in the previous year. There is a birth for a Herbert John Bull in Romford Registration in 1877, the year of birth he gave in 1939, so this is worth following up. There is another Herbert J Bull in the Romford area who was born in about the same year, but who died in 1957 – some time after your Herbert John Bull. This person was a farm labourer married to a Violet and born in nearby Dagenham, so be sure not to confuse them. You can use information from the marriage certificate to make the distinction. Stephen Thomas