The Child Who Died in the Fire (surname GOOCH)

[Spidermonkey]

Edwin Murray is bn Sept qtr 1896 Watford
Violet Priscilla is bn Dec qtr 1897 Watford
James Victor is bn DEc qtr 1899 Watford
Gladys May is bn Jun qtr 1901 Watford
Aline Rachel is bn Dec qtr 1902 Watford
Walter Sydney is bn Dec qtr 1904 Watford
Vera Theresa is bn Dec qtr 1906 Hertford

[rutht22000]

do we know when the parents married?  (maybe a gap before the first child or a twin or younger than the Viorey?)

[Spidermonkey]

oooh!  There is a Lilian Dorothy Gooch bn Mar qtr 1910 Hertford who dies Jun qtr 1910 Bishop Stortford......

[rutht22000]

oooh!  There is a Lilian Dorothy Gooch bn Mar qtr 1910 Hertford who dies Jun qtr 1910 Bishop Stortford......

well done ! that looks promising...!

[rutht22000]

Little Haddam in 1911 census is only about 3 miles away from Bishops Stortford....will have to see if LH falls into that registration district.

Edit:  and it certainly does http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/genuki/reg/districts/bishops%20stortford.html

birth certificate only way to solve 100% methinks

[ComposeMail]

Well Rutht22000, Spidermonkey, and Pels. that is fantastic!   Thank you so much!

I will send for the Birth Cert!   

[ComposeMail]

Hi,

I got the Birth Cert, and the Death Cert for Lilian Dorothy Gooch.   These confirm she was indeed the child of Robert Charles Gooch, a Police Constable, and Margaret Gooch, formerly Murry.

The Death Cert gives no clue that Lilian died in a fire.   Cause of Death is given as Marasmus Syncope: which I understand means a generalised failure to thrive.

Help!

[rutht22000]

Could it be one of the other older children and the story has got mangled with time passing and it possibly happened post 1911 as clearly Lilian is the 11th child?


Have you gone through to see if you could find what happened to all of the other siblings, married, died etc as you may be able to do it by a process of elimination and see if any of them died as children? 

Marasmus is the generally failure to thrive, but the syncope can be due to a heart problem

[Spidermonkey]

I agree with Ruth that you might need to match and dispatch the other children to get to the truth.  Also, I think it might be worth contacting Hertfordshire Record Office to see whether there are any newspapers that survive from that would have reported a fire.