What can you tell me about my mother’s childhood?
QMy mother, Joan Harris (née Grainger), was born on 19 December 1925 at 2 Stockwell Road, Knaresborough, North Yorkshire.
Prior to her death in 2015 in Queensland, Australia, she told me that the waterfront at Bribie Island ( north of Brisbane) reminded her of the times she used to visit Scarborough while living in a children’s home as a girl. It was the first time I had heard about it! When I questioned her further, I was told that she lived there between the ages of five and 14.
Apparently Joan and her sister, Irene, lived in the home together, but when Irene contracted tuberculosis she was sent to a hospital – I have no idea where. Joan appears on the 1939 Register living with her mother Daisy Grainger and Edward George Wilson (who Daisy married in 1941), but her life before then is a mystery to me.
How can I learn more about my mother’s childhood? Geraldine Farbrother, via email
AJoan’s place of birth, 2 Stockwell Road, was actually the Knaresborough Union workhouse. From 1904, the birth certificates of children born in a workhouse concealed the fact behind an anonymous sounding street address – a move intended to reduce the stigma that could disadvantage them in later life. The informant of the birth, usually the workhouse master, was recorded simply
as ‘the occupier’. A list of euphemistic workhouse addresses can be found at workhouses.org.uk/addresses.
As well as the workhouse, the Knaresborough Poor Law Union operated two children’s homes. These were opened in 1916 as part of a national drive to house pauper children in separate accommodation, away from the workhouse. The semidetached pair of homes, one for boys, named Fairholme, and one for girls, named Sunny Lea, were located at 5-7 Stockwell Lane, Knaresborough, a short distance away from the workhouse. Each home housed up to 15 children, under the care of a foster mother.
Depending on their situation, children might stay there until the age of 14 or 15. Joan and Irene would have attended local schools and received training in domestic skills, helping with the housework.
In 1930, the Boards of Guardians who ran the workhouse system were abolished and their duties passed to local county and town councils. From that time, the Stockwell Lane homes were run by the West Riding County Council. Following boundary changes in 1974, Knaresborough was relocated into North Yorkshire and the few surviving records for the Knaresborough Union are at the North Yorkshire County Record Office at Northallerton( bit.ly/northyorksCRO).
Unfortunately, inmate details don’t survive and local school records from that time are minimal. However, the building that housed the homes is still standing (see above). Peter Higginbotham