Mum and Dad, May 1989

The initial level of knowledge about our Dad's family was very low: Carol's family tree seems to have been written from family sources and can be taken, therefore, as being accurate, although there were still many gaps. We have been able to fill some of those gaps through our own research but although we have been able to push the tree back to c.1799, there are some people who remain stubbornly reluctant to show themselves in the registers and the census. This note is intended to explain where we are now and how we got there, so that others can join the hunt, as well as helping me to think more clearly about we know and what we still have to explore.

We know from Dad's note that our grandfather was Frank Charles Winter (right, c. 1918).

Frank was born on 3 July 1896 in Fulham and his parents were Frederick Charles Winter and Elizabeth Payne. Frank spent the Great War serving as a soldier in the Royal Garrison Artillery, and he remained in the Army at least until after his marriage in 1920, by which time we know (from photographs) that he had reached the rank of sergeant. On my Dad's birth certificate (May 1928) he is shown as a Bakers' Roundsman and he later became a milkman at United Diaries in Streatham. He died suddenly on 27th September 1947, aged 51.

Frederick Winter seems to have spent most of his working life on the buses and is shown as an Omnibus Conductor in the mid-1890's. At some point between September 1895 and December 1901 Frederick and Elizabeth moved away from Chelsea, where his family had lived since the 1850's, south of the river to Tulse Hill. We have one photograph of him (below left): a formal pose in his Conductor's uniform; the date of this is uncertain but from his age it would seem likely that it is post-War, probably around the time of Frank and Amy's marriage, i.e. early 1920's.

The uniform shows he worked for the General Omnibus Company.

The 1901 census shows the family were living in Tulse Hill and Frederick was working as a greengrocer's assistant. At some later unknown time moved to the Wandsworth area, as the next event we know about is Frank's marriage to our Nan, Amy Spencer, on 17 October 1920. This, and his son Harold's marriage to Amy's sister Emily, shows that Frederick's occupation was Bus Conductor. As we estimate that Frederick was born around 1870, he would have been at least fifty years old at this time.

We don't know why Frederick left the buses and then later returned. We also don't know when or why the family moved to Earlsfield; it is possible that the move to Wandsworth was connected to a return to work on the buses, or it may be that the census is wrong about his occupation. Further research to find any employment records from the bus company might show what we want to know.

Our original research looked for information about Frederick, which has been pretty scarce. The starting point was his marriage certificate (from 1895), which told us that his father was William Winter, a salesman, and that William was deceased at the time of the wedding. At this time Frederick was living at 14 Blantyre Street, Chelsea, presumably with his family. His wife, Elizabeth, is shown as living at St Lukes, West Norwood.  

We knew that William must have died at some time between Frederick's birth in c.1870 and his marriage in 1895. A trawl of the 1881 census showed no suitable William Winter with a son Frederick in the relevant locality. The 1881 census did show, however, a family living at 12 Victoria Yard, Chelsea headed by Sarah Winter, a widow, who had a son Frederick aged 10.

In order to prove a link with our family we needed to find out two things:

• was Sarah's dead husband called William, and is their son Frederick our great grandfather?

We have a certificate for the death of William Winter in 1880, aged 39 years, which confirms that this was Sarah's husband and that William was a furniture salesman at his death; their address was given as 12 Victoria Yard. From the 1881 census we know that Frederick had two brothers, Joseph aged 14, and Thomas aged 3, and a sister, Elizabeth aged 12. Elizabeth was born Sarah Elizabeth on 21 November 1868 at Church Road, Hammersmith. We don't yet have birth certificates for Frederick or Thomas but we have do the birth and marriage certificates for Joseph which show his father William as a furniture salesman and his mother as Sarah Foster. His marriage certificate from 1890 shows him living at 14 Blantyre Street, Chelsea, which is the same address shown on Frederick's marriage certificate in 1895. This would seem to prove a link between our Frederick and the family shown on the 1881 census. However, the Winter family are not shown at this address in the 1891 census.

We know from the 1881 census that William and Sarah had four children: Joseph Henry, Frederick Charles, Elizabeth and Thomas. In searching for the baptism records of these children, we have also discovered that they had two other children who had died young. Fanny was baptised on 23 November 1879 and a unnamed (Winter) baby on 27 July 1880, both in private ceremonies, according to the register entries. We think this baby was called Alfred, as there is entry in the BMD registers for a death of an Alfred Winter, aged 0, in Chelsea in the September 1880 book (Ref. 1a 184). Fanny is recorded in the December 1879 register, also in Chelsea, aged 7 (Ref. 1a 198). It seems that Fanny may have been baptised when she was because the family knew she was about to die.

We have also found the birth certificate for William and Sarah's eldest child, William John, in February 1865. William and Sarah were married in April 1864: the address for William John's birth is shown as 4 College Place, Chelsea, which is where Sarah was living before they married. William John later worked as a footman at Smedmore House in Kimmeridge, Dorset. This is the house where his aunt, Susan Winter, was married to the butler, John Braisby. The Kimmeridge connection is given in more detail here.

Smedmore House

Children of William Winter and Sarah Foster
William John	b. 12 February 1865	4 College Place, Chelsea	Jeweller
Joseph Henry	b. 7 October 1866	11 Wellington Rd, Bridge Rd, H'smith
Frederick Charles	b. 1869
Sarah Elizabeth	b. 21 November 1868	1 Church Road, Hammersmith	Furniture Salesman
Thomas	b. 1878
Fanny	b. 1872			died 26 November 1879
Alfred	b. May 1880	12 Victoria Yard, Chelsea	Furniture Salesman	died 13 August 1880

The period between November 1879 and October 1880 must have been a difficult year for the family. Daughter Fanny had died within a week of catching pneumonia in November 1879 and the birth of her brother Alfred in May 1880 may have been premature. He died of inanition aged 13 weeks in August 1880; inanition is an inability to take nourishment and this may have been due to him being born premature. Then just over two months later, in October 1880, his father William died of consumption. Sarah had lost two children and her husband in less than a year. Widowed, with four children still at home, life must have looked very bleak for her. As far as we know her own family remained living in Northamptonshire and her mother-in-law, Elizabeth, had moved away from Chelsea after the death of her husband John in May 1877. She was now living in Dorset and so Sarah was without the support of close family.

We know that she remarried, probably sometime in the early 1880's. The 1901 census shows her as Sarah Fisher, widow, at 14 Blantyre Street, Chelsea - the address on Frederick's marriage certificate from 1895. Her son, Thomas Winter, is living with her together with his stepsister, Kate Fisher. I have found an entry from the 1891 census which I think is the same family but is not necessarily 100%. It appears likely that Sarah (whose first husband, William Winter, died in 1880) remarried sometime in the early 1880's and was widowed again before the 1891 census. It seems that she did not marry a third time.

The 1901 census shows our great grandfather Frederick's birthplace as Chelsea which is, I think, conclusive proof of the link with the family of Sarah and William at Victoria Yard in 1881. We have a marriage certificate which shows that William Winter married Sarah Foster on 10 April 1864 at St Luke's Church, Chelsea. William's father was John Winter, a clerk. His address is shown as 11 Victoria Yard. One of the witnesses was Susan Winter, William's sister. We know from the 1861 and 1871 census records that John Winter's family lived at 11 Victoria Yard in those years. This confirms that John's wife was Elizabeth, born c. 1820, and that he worked as a clerk for the civil service.

We know from the census records of 1851, 1861, 1871 and 1881 that the family moved up to London from Devon at sometime between the birth of Susan (in 1844 at Plymouth) and the 1851 census. At the time of the 1851 census the family were living in Queen's Place, Chelsea, in the parish of St Jude. John's occupation in 1842 was Cotton Trimmer, but between 1844 and 1851 (by which time he had moved to London) he is shown as a Tallow Chandler. By the time of the 1861 census and until his retirement he was employed as a clerk in the civil service.

Both William and Susan were born in Devon but their parents' birthplaces are uncertain. The evidence from the census records is conflicting. John's birthplace is shown as Devon (1851), Somerby, Lincolnshire (1861) and Somerby, Leicestershire (1871). Elizabeth's birthplace is shown as Cornwall (1851 and 1871) and Guernsey (1861 and 1881).

It seems likely that John Winter died sometime between Susan's marriage in 1873 (when he is described as a "Gentleman", and was a witness to the marriage) and the 1881 census, as there is no John Winter of the right age or birthplace (either Lincoln or Leicester) shown in the census (he would have been aged 82 by then). There is an entry for an Elizabeth Winter of the right age (born in Guernsey) living with her daughter Susan, in Kimmeridge, Dorset. This is John's widow. We know that Susan Winter married John Braisby in March 1873 at Chelsea, and that at the time John Braisby was already living in Kimmeridge. As their children were all born in Kimmeridge from 1874 onwards, the couple obviously straight away set up home in Dorset; it may be that Susan was already in domestic service in Dorset and thus met John Braisby there (she is not shown on the 1871 census with her parents and brother). They may even have worked in the same household. The marriage certificate shows no occupation for Susan and gives her address as just "upper Chelsea".  

William himself was born in St John's, Exeter on 17 September 1842. At the 1861 census he was 18 years old and working as a "shopman". He married Sarah Foster in 1864 when he was 21 years old, but his occupation is now shown as "jeweller". His eldest son Joseph was born in Hammersmith on 7 October 1866, when William was working as a furniture salesman. This is recorded as his occupation on his death certificate in 1880.

We know from the children's birth certificates that Elizabeth's maiden name was Pollard. As she was born in 1820 she was a lot younger than her husband. It is possible that John had been previously married; he was aged 42 when William was born. If we can trace John and Elizabeth's marriage we would know whether this was the case, but I have been unable to find their marriage in the IGI, the FRC between 1837 and 1842, or in the Devon Family History Society marriage index (1813-1837). It will be worth looking again at the FRC as we now know Elizabeth's maiden name.

The 1901 census has been very revealing: we now know that Frederick Winter's wife, Elizabeth Payne (Dad's grandmother), was born in Scotland. This has led to the discovery of her birth certificate and details of her parents' marriage and her father's death. We knew, from her marriage certificate, that her father was Thomas Payne, deceased soldier. She was born on 16 October 1874 at 7 am and her birth certificate shows her father as Thomas, a private soldier in the 1st Dragoons, stationed at Piershill Barracks, South Leith, Edinburgh. Her mother was Mary Ann Bryant. Her parents' married on 22 February 1868 in Limerick, Ireland. Thomas died just over a year after Elizabeth's birth, on 9 November 1874. We can now start to search for Thomas' army service record, which should provide us with lots more information. It is still a mystery, though, how Thomas and Mary met. We don't know his nationality but Mary was born in Surrey, possibly Streatham (there is a 1881 census entry for Mary Ann Payne and daughter Elizabeth, aged 7). Perhaps Thomas' regiment was in London and she followed him to Ireland? Or was she already in Ireland when they met?

We have also found Frederick's brother Joseph's family on the 1901 census. They were living at 49 Goulden Place, Battersea, but as their children were born in Paddington in 1894 and 1896 the family had obviously moved around before settling south of the river. Perhaps it was his brother's Battersea connection that led Frederick to move to Wandsworth?