RootsChat.Com
Beginners => Family History Beginners Board => Topic started by: BETTS7 on Monday 18 August 14 13:54 BST (UK)
-
I have just found a relative on the 1901 census who is listed as a "penitent" at the Albion Hill Home, Finsbury road, Brighton. She is 13 years old and listed as a "housemaid - domestic" under occupation. I know that her mother had died in 1898, but her father was still alive and living with one of her sisters. Any idea why she would be there or what she may have done?
-
Can you give her name? The census Ref is RG13 Piece 924 Folio 127 Page 29
Penitent Women were usually prostitutes. The purpose of a penitentiary was to offer refuge and help to girls and women in need, and were usually run by a Charity.
There is a similar post http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=669512.msg5146782#msg5146782 where a 12 year old girl, Allise COYNEY was a housemaid, not one of the "fallen women".
Stan
-
In 1868 a new building, the Brighton Home for Female Penitents, was opened on the eastern side of Finsbury Road where it was generally known as the Albion Hill Home. In 1917 this was taken over by the Church Army as a girls' home and school run by nuns, http://www.mybrightonandhove.org.uk/page_id__8541.aspx
Stan