If the Frank was the one who died in Chelsea in 1952, he would be about 10 years older than Adelaide. There is a Frank Harling birth reg Kensington district Q3 1882.
Marriage for a Frank Harling Q3 1904 Brentford district.
Frank can be found in 1911 and the entry is interesting...
and so can his missing wife
The 1939 census confirms a 10 yr age gap between Adelaide and Frank.
Check out the "missing wife".
My grandmother also "lost" a year. We didn't know her true year of birth until after she died, when we got the birth certificate. Everything else was correct - but she was born in 1905, not 1906 as she had always said.
My great-grandmother lived with a man most of her adult life and took his name. It's his name on her tombstone. However, she was actually initially married to someone else and it's her married name on her death certificate. She was refused a divorce by the court when she tried to divorce husband no.1. Divorce was difficult to get and expensive, therefore uncommon.
All or any of the above could apply to Adelaide and Frank's case. None of these scenarios was uncommon. They were repeated over and over across the country, with the sole exception that most people in this situation didn't even bother trying to get divorced! None of them seems odd enough to overwrite the coincidences that make me, and others here, feel that Adelaide Springett/Harland were the same person.
