The Cox family - moving from village to the city

In a previous post, I mapped the migration of much of my great great grandfather's family, the Whites, away from the Huntingdonshire village of Bluntisham, to the cities of London, Nottingham and Stoke, in the last half of the nineteenth-century. 

My grandmother's grandmother, Jane Cox, married her husband, William White, in 1851. For this next post, I have again researched the historical records to see if the pattern of internal migration in William White's family is repeated in the history of the family of Jane Cox, who originally lived in the neighbouring Huntingdonshire village of Woodhurst. 

Church St. and South St. - the two streets of Woodhurst - as mapped in 1888 

The nine Cox siblings

While William White was one of seven siblings, Jane Cox was one of nine. As the previous post illustrated, Jane and William had married in London but then returned to their Huntingdonshire roots after just a few years to raise their family in Jane's home village of Woodhurst. It had waited for the next generation of Whites - William and Jane's children, and the children of William's brothers and sisters - for more permanent migration from the village to really taken hold. So what is the pattern with the nine Cox siblings?

1) The oldest siblings don't leave the village for long

Just as with William White and his brother Harry, who briefly lived in London in the 1850s but then returned to Huntingdonshire, the tables below shows that the same pattern holds with the older Cox brothers and sisters too:

The eldest sister, Elizabeth Cox, had moved to Great Stukeley, a village nearer Huntingdon, but only 8 miles or so away from Woodhurst. She spent the rest of her life there, for some of the time being the innkeeper at the "Three Horseshoes" pub. 

Just like his sister Jane Cox, who had married William White in London, her brother George does the same, marrying Frances Stokes, also from Woodhurst, in Marylebone in 1853. As further evidence that she is also living in London with William at this time, Jane is one of the witnesses. But, once again, just like Jane and William, Frances and George then soon return to Woodhurst. 

It was only after William's death in 1871 that the widowed Jane White again left the village to live her last decades in the city, firstly in Stoke and then in London, living with relatives that had already made that journey. Again, the same pattern is followed by George and Frances, with the bride outliving her husband and then moving away from the village once again to live near her children. In this case, however, the move is to the south-west, to the growing railway town of Swindon. This is a story that will be set out in a separate post.

2) ... but their children leave permanently - to London and elsewhere

The tables below confirm the pattern that was seen with the Whites - that although their parents may have returned to Huntingdonshire, their children - or at least those that survive to adulthood - overwhelmingly make a permanent move away from the rural villages to make new lives for themselves in towns and cities.

Jane's surviving children - as they are also, of course, William White's children - have already been discussed in the previous post. Harriet and Martha move to London, while Harry, Edward and William move to Stoke-on-Trent. William later moves further again, to Barrow-on-Furness:

Elizabeth's surviving children leave Great Stukeley and, with the exception of Alfred, a wheelwright and carpenter, who moves between various parts of East Anglia, all raise their families in London. Edmund is in the London printing trade, progressing to becoming the manager of a Printing Company. Agnes marries William Hacklett, another London printer. Ernest becomes a draughtsman.

The close connections between different branches of the Cox family can be seen in the marriage records of Elizabeth's sons. The two brothers Ernest and Edmund marry two sisters, Helen and Clara Hackney, who came, of course, from Hackney.

Their brother Alfred marries Annie Singer, daughter of the first wife of Thomas Singer, his Aunt Susan's husband (see below) - a web which needs a diagram! :-

George's surviving children choose not to head to London, but elsewhere:

The eldest, Martha Jane spends her life 'in service'. The table shows Martha Jane's 'promotion' through the ranks of women working in these roles. 

In 1871 she is still in Woodhurst, as the housemaid of a farmer of 232 acres. By 1891 she's a cook at Lilford Hall, one of the many servants working at the home of Thomas Lyttleton Powys, 'Peer of the Realm'. The Hall was apparently first acquired by his ancestor Thomas Powys, Tory politician and Attorney General to King James II. 

Martha Jane's employer, the '4th Baron Lilford' had clearly inherited sufficient wealth to be able to travel the world to pursue his interest in ornithology. He helped found the British Ornithologists' Union and kept birds in aviaries in the grounds of Lilford Hall. Martha Jane presumably helped make sure he ate well too!

By 1911, Martha Jane Cox is the housekeeper at Mells Park, Frome in Somerset. This was another grand house, but one that burnt down in 1917, although then rebuilt and - here's an unexpected fact - was apparently the venue during 1987–90 "for secret negotiations between the African National Congress and the South African government". 

At the time of the 1901 census, the house had been rented out to Gilbert Thompson Bates, son of the notorious shipowner, Edward "Bully" Bates. "Bully" Bates was infamous for deliberately overloading ships in order to then cash in on inflated insurance claims - the kind of activities that led to the introduction of the "Plimsoll Line" on the side of ships. He was also notoriously aggressive and brutal - hopefully his son was less so to his housekeeper! 

Martha Jane's death, in 1913, is registered as having been in Swindon. That's where her brothers, Frederick and John George, had moved to many years before. They are both first listed as being at the same address in the town, 21 Brunel Street, in the 1881 census (although this is the last time Fred can be traced).

The street name, honouring Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the Chief Engineer of the Great Western Railway, is a clue to the industry that dominated Swindon at the time John George Cox and his family were living in the town. However, that story, which shows how, in the next generation, the Cox migration then extended across, and - tragically - to the bottom, of the Atlantic Ocean, will be told in a separate post.

3) The younger Cox siblings migrate to London - and their children stay there

As the records suggest that John, Martha and Isaac did not live long enough to raise a family, the other relevant records are for the three further siblings, James, Susan and Martha Ann. Here the pattern is different. With the pace of internal migration increasing, these younger siblings move permanently away from the village. All three leave Woodhurst, then marry and raise families in London, although with the fathers following three different trades: 

a. Martha Ann Cox

The exact year when Martha Ann Cox leaves for London is unclear but, as explained below, it must have been before 1870. By 1874, she has married Robert Timothy Pratt, a printer, at the Denbigh Road Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, Notting Hill. Her sister, Susan, who must have also moved south by then, is one of the witnesses:

The father of the bridegroom, another Robert Pratt, is listed only as a 'foreman' on the marriage certificate. However, other records clarify that he was employed by the Great Western Railway at Paddington Goods Station. 

The GWR is an employer that appears on several occasions in my family history, including in the letter from his trade union warning my grandfather that he had been 'listed up' by the company for his participation in the 1926 General Strike. However, Robert Pratt (senior) is the first GWR employee that links to my family tree. The GWR employment registers record his employment with the company starting as early as June 1839, only a year after the first ever GWR train left Paddington. This also means that he must have made the move from his birthplace (Great Yarmouth) to work in London earlier than many others who later made the same decision:

Robert Pratt (senior) had four children, all born in Paddington. None of his three sons followed him into working on the railway. However, Robert Pratt's daughter, Mary Ellen Pratt, married a railworker. Her husband was Thomas Singer, a Paddington Goods Station porter/warehouseman, originally from South Wales, who had first started working for the GWR in 1862. 

The records show that Thomas already had two children from a first marriage, but, as seems to have been quite usual, Thomas quickly remarries after his first wife dies. Thomas and Mary Ellen's marriage ceremony took place, just like Martha Ann Cox's, at the Denbigh Road Wesleyan Chapel, but four years earlier, in 1870:

Look carefully at the name of the witnesses - they are none other than Martha Ann Cox and her future husband, Robert Timothy Pratt. When did they first meet? Was it through work, through a common location in Paddington, or perhaps through the Wesleyan Chapel? Or all three? 

A possible connection between Martha Ann and the Pratts and Singers is through Thomas White, her sister Jane's brother-in-law. As the previous post on the Whites set out, although his employer isn't identified, in 1851 Thomas was certainly living as a 'porter' on Market Street, near Paddington station. He is then listed as a 'warehouseman', living nearby at 73 Marylebone Road, in both the 1861 and 1871 records. Could he have provided the link with the families of GWR porters?

What is certain is that Martha Ann and Robert Timothy Pratt then lived until around the turn of the century in Ellerslie Road, Shepherd's Bush, and their children attended the nearby St. Stephen's Parochial School. Robert Timothy is recorded as remaining as a printer/stationer throughout his life, once certainly working - according to an 1895 electoral roll - at Ludgate Circus, on Fleet Street, the heart of the print industry. 

By the 1901 census, they had moved to Romford, on the other side of London. They lived there until their deaths, with Martha living the longest, dying in 1917. She was able to leave over £1,000 to her son, Reginald Robert, who had also become a printer:

The records for this next generation, the six children of Martha Ann and Robert Timothy Pratt, are summarised in the table below:

As can be seen, the four surviving children, all raised in London by their parents, also raise their families in the London region too. To be more precise, they stay in the Romford area, where their parents had moved to, or move out of the city to Southend-on-Sea.

Alice Annie marries a railway clerk and moves to Southend where she dies in 1914. Reginald Robert continues in the printing trade and lives in Romford (for some of the time as a member of the local 'Liberty of Havering' Lodge of the freemasons!) until his death in 1935.  Sydney Ewart, another carpenter/joiner, is also recorded as living in Romford in 1911. His marriage is recorded as having taken place in King's Lynn in 1908, his wife's home town, and this is also where his death is recorded in 1960. The youngest child, Spencer Alfred, also becomes a printer/compositor and marries Ethel Kittle, a war widow from Romford, in 1919. In 1939, the couple are still living in Romford but Spencer's death, in 1951, is registered in Rochford, near Southend, Essex.

The two youngest sons are both recorded as having fought in WW1, Spencer Alfred with the Bedfordshire Regiment. But it is Sydney Ewart's war record that is the most intriguing as his papers show that he joined the Royal Navy in 1917 but then transferred to the RAF. However, I have not been able to trace any further details. 

b. Susan Cox

The 1861 census shows that Susan had moved from Woodhurst to the neighbouring village of Old Hurst to work as a servant. She is untraced in the 1871 census. However, the two marriage records above confirm that, firstly, by 1874 Susan Cox had already moved on to London, and secondly, that her younger sister Martha Ann is well known to Thomas Singer. That's a connection that appears to have been significant after Mary Ellen Singer (née Pratt) dies in 1881. The records show that, once again, Thomas quickly remarries - and his third wife is Susan Cox.

There are other facts in the ancestry record that confirm a close connection between the sisters Martha Ann and Susan Cox. After their marriage in 1881, Thomas and Susan also live on Ellerslie Road, Shepherd's Bush, just a few doors down from the Pratts; their children also attend the nearby St. Stephen's School; and they also end up moving to Romford (perhaps after Thomas receives his pension from the GWR, in 1904). 

As the picture below shows, not only do the two sisters both move to Romford, they move to neighbouring streets. What's more, by the 1911 census, a third sister, Jane, my grandmother's grandmother, has moved to Romford too!

Susan dies in 1914 but, again, her surviving daughter, Mabel Agnes, remains in the London region, marrying Ernest Foster in Romford in 1910, In 1911, the couple are living in Bow, East London and Ernest, originally a carpenter, is now recorded as a 'police constable'. He is also another freemason, the records showing that he joined the Victoria Park Lodge in 1916, by then a police sergeant. 

By 1939, the couple are running a pub at 9 Denmark St - now 17 Jutland Street - in Newham (now closed and operating as an Islamic community centre). Ernest dies in Romford in 1956, Mabel in Harlow in 1976.

Ernest and Mabel's former pub in East London today

c. James Cox

James Cox initially moved to London to follow his father's trade and became a carpenter. In 1861 he is listed with this trade, lodging with other carpenters on York Street in Lambeth (later renamed as Leake Street, now home to the 'graffiti tunnel' and trendy eateries housed in the railway arches under Waterloo Station where James may have once worked). In 1871 he is listed as a Sapper in the Royal Engineers, perhaps thanks to his carpentry skills, stationed at the School of Military Engineering in Chatham:

It's not clear how long he remained in the army as the next confirmed record I have for James Cox is his 1883 marriage to Lucy Hurrell, the daughter of another carpenter, at Holy Trinity Church, Islington.

The census and school records shows that, until around the turn of the century, James continues to earn his living as a carpenter and the couple and their children live at various addresses in Islington, Stepney, Whitechapel and Notting Hill. Their 1888 address - "Morrisons Buildings" were blocks of flats built by the 'Improved Industrial Dwellings Co Ltd.' on the Commercial Road, Stepney. These were one of the "model dwelling companies" building housing for the working-class at this time, also mentioned in my previous post on the Whites.

The 1901 census, however, shows a significant change of occupation. The family are living at 2 Hanbury Street, Spitalfields, and James is now listed as a "Coffee House Keeper", with Mary as a "Cook", presumably for the coffee house, especially given that, in 1911, after James has died in 1907, the census records the address as "Coffee and Dining Rooms". This would certainly not have been one of the hipster barista bars of today's East End, nor would it have been like the merchants' meeting places of the original London Coffee houses. Instead, it would probably have catered for local workers. Coffee Houses were undergoing a revival at this time under the influence of the Temperance Movement, providing an alternative to the pub as a place to meet and socialise.

With presumably enough capital built up from his work as a carpenter, this change of trade meant that James and Lucy were running their own business. The census records suggest that their two daughters, Lucy Ethel and Lilian Maud, were probably also working at the dining rooms. Their eldest child Letitia's husband, Charles Heber Ward, is also separately listed as "manager, coffee and dining rooms" in the 1911 census. 

Charles Heber Ward, 'Coffee House Keeper' - 'Killed in Action', 16th August 1917

The records confirm that Lucy Ethel dies in 1913 and that their son, Frederick James, had probably died before that. Charles was killed in Flanders in 1917 and is buried in the Perth (also known as China Wall) Cemetery outside Ypres. There is a record of a 'war gratuity' being paid to Letitia in 1919 but there are are no further confirmed records for either Letitia or Lilian after that.

Whatever became of them after the war, it's worth taking a final look at the district where they had been living in 1911. Spitalfields has often been an area where migrant communities have settled in London, and at that time, many residents were Jewish immigrants. These extracts from the 1911 census records for Hanbury Street give just a flavour of the neighbourhood:

However, the area also had its darker side. Not long after the 1911 census had been taken, Samuel and Annie Millstein, the 'restaurant keepers' registered above at 62 Hanbury Street, were violently murdered. A local man was tried and hanged for the crime, the prosecution case being that he had been motivated by anger at the money he had lost in an illegal gambling den operating in the basement of the restaurant.

Whether coincidental or not, James Cox's widow Lucy appears to have left Spitalfields at some point fairly soon after this, with her death, in 1916, being registered in Lambeth.

***

There's only one more story to tell about the Cox family - the tale of John George Cox's move to Swindon and his daughter's tragic death - which will be in a separate post. But there are also other stories to come from the family tree - tales of the Swifts, and of the Snelgroves, two more families who moved from the rural villages to London to build new lives. So, there are further posts to come too ...