Greenwich Broad Street: poor or affluent?

[martianuk]

Thank you for the info - I appreciate it!   

[kennyb]

May not be needed now,but this link shows all the rich and poor areas.
                                                                   KenB.
http://booth.lse.ac.uk/cgi-bin/do.pl?sub=view_booth_and_barth&m.l=0&m.d.l=2&m.p.x=9663&m.p.y=2420&m.p.w=500&m.p.h=309&m.p.l=1&m.t.w=128&m.t.h=80&b.p.x=16630&b.p.y=385&b.p.w=500&b.p.h=309&b.p.l=2&b.p.p.l=1&b.v.x=270&b.v.y=167

[martianuk]

I appreciate that too. Mr Booth probably didn't have a clue how long-lasting and valued his study would become!

Kind regards, Kirsty

[peter73]

The street you are looking for is probably Greenwich BRAND street. It was constructed in the 1830s so it should fit with the dates you specified. You should be able to look up the census returns for 1861, 1871, 1881 1891 and 1901 on
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/census/
The street is listed under Greenwich West

I used this site to look for a Frank Delamar and there is one Frank O H Delmar living in a boarding house in Guildford Surrey in 1861 with Emma Van Toll.
He comes up under "Frank Van Foll" at school in 1871
And there also appears to be a Frank Vantoll/ Van Toll who had been born in Greenwich about 1858 and was a shopkeeper in Worthing in Sussex and was living in Worthing in Sussex with a wife and 3 children in both the 1891 and 1901 cenuses.

[martianuk]

Peter- thank you for the Greenwich Brand St info. I am confident to say then that this  confirms the street of birth.

You must have been a keen researcher to undertake the search for Frank. I do have his info, but he wasn't an easy man to find with those variants in his name. So I appreciate your keeness in my quest! Since posting this topic a couple of months ago, I have uncovered Frank's supposed father's history and can conclude that Frank was definitely illegitimate. Henry was a naturalised Dutch man, who had no known family in England or Holland before he married Emma - Frank's mother - according to his naturalisation papers, except an Aunt also residing in England. Unfortunately, he gives her no name, age or location, or maternal/paternal link.

Henry spoke no language other than English and had lived in England all his life, save 6 weeks. What happened to his (Dutch) parents? I do not know.

No one has been able to find Henry and Emma (married) on a census in 1851. I have details of her bankruptcy issue from a newspaper after Henry's death and Frank's birth and it says that she's Lady Widow Van Toll of Richmond, Surrey. In 1861 she was in her mother's boarding house in Guildford and in 1862 she gave birth to another illegitimate child in Yately, Hampshire. Although the father was unnamed, she still harked back to her deceased husband's name and called the infant Alfred Delmar (forenames) Van Toll. He died in the quarter following his birth.

So the lady moved around a bit and liked the sound of the names Delmar and Van Toll. Tracking her brother, he had a child in Richmond, Surrey, but that was inbetween censuses, so I have no address. If I order the birth cert, I should have an address and possible link to where Henry and Emma, or the 'aunt' may have lived, for Richmond was Henry's town of residence before he met Emma. I also cannot find her family in 1851, which is a shame, because her father was alive then, but died before 1861, so I don't know much about him other than office clerk and the birth location of his wife (Staines, Middx) and children (all Twickenham).

Any way, I'm rambling and you're probably not interested...and somewhat confused!!!

London, with all it's parishes with similar names and churches and long roads that span parishes, is a nightmarish place to lose people in. My folks might turn up one day!

Best wishes,
Kirsty

[peter73]

I'm glad it was useful. I guess to go back to your original question, I can tell you a bit about Brand St - I actually tlive there now!
It is a street of about 100 terraced houses mostly built around 1830. It has a pub at each end of the road. The houses are a moderate size and would probably have been built for lower middle class workers. Most houses are spred over 4 floors with two basement rooms downstairs (usually used as kitchen/dining room), 2 ground floor rooms, 2 upstairs bedrooms and 1 further attic room with sloping ceilings - we think this attic room was used by a domestic servant.
It is about 5 - 10 minutes walk from the centre of Greenwich. At the time, Greenwich would have been a very busy port town. In a sense Greenwich was the first Suburb in the world - the first railway in a big city was the London and Greenwich line which opened in 1836.
I found your post while I was trying to find the history of who lived in our house in the 1800s. Unfortunately all of the house numbers changed in the early 1900s so I can't pin down precise addresses, but it was interesting to follow Frank Delmar/van Toll as an example of someone who lived on the street.
Here's a link to a map showing the street today
http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newmap.srf?x=538174&y=177123&z=1&sv=Brand+Street&st=6&tl=Brand+Street,+London,+SE10&searchp=newsearch.srf&mapp=newmap.srf

[martianuk]

That is so fascinating. I love this web site!

I will eventually find out why Frank was born in Brand Street and his mother's connection to it.  Of course, if it was where the illegit father lived, or if it was because Emma was 'in hiding' then I haven't got much of a chance. What somewhat puzzles me is why she didn't/couldn't have kids with the man she married. They were together for 3 years and you know what breeding was like in those days: it was often the reason for marriage. I'd guess much more so than these days!

Thank you Peter.

Regards, Kirsty

[bvwt]

If it is Brand Street you're really after, I wouldn't particularly call it affluent - at least from 1918 to the 1970's. My grandmother and grandfather Poynter moved into Number 21 around 1918-1919. My mother was born there in 1920. They actually rented that place until my grandmother died in the 1980's. My great grandfather Poynter lived at the "top end" of Brand Street.

They were not affluent by any means. But then again, this was not a run-down dump of a street either. Houses were relatively clean and tidy inside and the steps up to the front door were scrubbed and whitewashed regularly.

There was a laundry opposite #21, which took in washing - mainly from the 'big' houses up on Blackheath, I'm told. Several shops were at the "bottom end" across from the Morden Arms. A newsagents in particular I remember because I often had to run there for my grandad's tobacco, and a leather goods shop which was owned by some Germans who had to move out when WW2 began. In fact I briefly made contact with a lady now living in Australia who was related to that family. If she sees this perhaps she could add more.

Brian Thornett
Crabapple, Georgia.