The Hudson Family Newsletter

Issue 2
Easter 2000

Introduction

Welcome to the second issue of the Hudson Family Newsletter. I haven't made much headway on the HUDSON side of the family, but I have a lot more information on the BRYERs, in particular, I have been delving more deeply into the family of John Henry and Emma BRYER, and thought the time may be appropriate to share my research with a small part of the family that sprang from their marriage. I have been lucky enough to be able to spend a couple of weeks in London since Christmas, and in the evenings after my training course was able to visit a number of important archives in order to get more information on the family and the areas in which they lived. This is what I found.

The Hatter of Bermondsey

Our story begins one hundred and eighty six years ago, in 1814. Britain was ruled by George IV after the death of his father Mad King George III, and Napoleon was about to escape from Elba and raise another army to wage war on Britain. London was gripped by The Great Frost, the coldest winter for centuries, and Londoners held a Frost Fair on the surface of the frozen Thames. Into this city, John Henry Bryer was born around 1814; he was very consistent about his age, both in the census entries I have found for him and on his death certificate, and so I am reasonably certain of the date. The place, however, is less certain. In the 1851, 1871 and 1881 censuses he states that he was born in Hammersmith, but I was unable to find a baptism for him in the records of St Paul's, the only major church in Hammersmith at that time. I suspect that he was brought up in Hammersmith from an early age and had assumed that he had been born there. It is not easy to trace people before 1837, when general registration began, unless you have a good idea of the parish they came from, and it may not be possible for me to go any further back than 1814 with John Henry. Also, because he married Emma Berry in 1834 (also before registration began) the marriage record in the register of St Mary's Newington does not state the names of either of their fathers - later marriage records do give this very useful piece of information. So even if I do find a John Henry born in 1814, I can't be absolutely sure he is the right one, although the unusual surname does help a little. On going through the marriage registers of St Mary's, I found two other Bryer marriages in the years immediately before and after John's; Jane Bryer married James Rumsey in 1833 and Ann Bryer married Henry Wetherilt in 1835. Again no father's names are given, and none of the three marriages seems to have been attended by a member of the Bryer family since they are not named as witnesses. Given the rarity of the surname and the fact that all three marriages took place in the same church, the evidence points to the assumption that Jane, John and Ann were siblings, but further investigation needs to be done. Luckily Rumsey and Wetherilt are also relatively unusual surnames, so the task of tracing them further may not be too difficult!

In a History of Bermondsey by G W Phillips, published in 1841, he describes the hatting trade. Messrs Christy (who are supposed to be the largest manufacturers of hats in the world) have an extensive factory, occupying two ranges of buildings on opposite sides of Bermondsey Street… On entering the gateway to the east range, the first object at the end of a long avenue is a lofty chimney connected with the steam engine, and rising to the height of 160ft, and into which is turned the smoke from the steam engine as well as from narrow fire places. Over the gateway is a range of warehouses for wool and other articles; from thence, proceeding onwards, is seen, on the left, a pile of buildings occupied by cloth cap makers, hat trimmers, and packers. On the right of the same avenue is another range of buildings consisting of a fireproof varnish store-room, silk hat workshops, and shops wherein the early stages of beaver hatting are carried on… The number of persons employed at their factory in Bermondsey Street is about five hundred, and out of these there is not far short of two hundred females, whose earnings vary from eight to fourteen shillings per week. John Henry may not have worked for Christy's, but the description of their factory would have been recognisable to him and the type of wages earned most probably what he took home to his family.

What I do know about John Henry is this. In 1841, at the time of the census, he and Emma were living at 15 Frederick Street, Bermondsey, in the Borough of Southwark, with their three sons, John aged 6, Thomas aged 4 and Frederick aged 2. John Henry was described on this census as being a Hatter; Bermondsey was famous for it's hat industry, a by product of the leather preparation industry which was a major source of employment. He was described as a hatter (or Journeyman Hatter which means that he was hired by the day, rather than having his own business) on every census and birth certificate until around 1862 when he suddenly and inexplicably became a Cab Proprietor. But more of this later.

I do not know where the eldest son John was born, as his place of birth is not given on the 1841 census returns, and by the time the 1851 census was taken, John was no longer living with the family. At the age of sixteen, or thereabouts, he would have long since started work - children in the 1840s rarely had much of an education, especially in the poorer areas of cities, and he may have left home to work or have been away apprenticed to a master from as young as 10 years old. I have not found a death certificate for him so he was probably still living in 1851.

Thomas was born in the parish of Christ Church in Southwark in around 1837, according to the 1851 census. I haven't found a birth certificate for him, which means that he was either born before registration came into force in July 1837, and so did not need to be registered, or that his parents simply did not know they had to register him. They certainly knew about registering babies two years later when Frederick was born. I was unable to find a baptism for Thomas in Christ Church baptism register. He was still living with his parents in 1851, when he was 13 years old, when he was described as an errand boy, and still with them in 1871 at age 33, when he had also gone into the family business and was a cab driver. By 1881 he had finally flown the nest, where to I have yet to discover, although I have found a Thomas of roughly the right age and born in Bermondsey, living with wife Adelaide and daughter Ada at 10 Henrietta Street Bloomsbury, and his occupation was given as Coachman. Since Ada was born in Birmingham I suspect that Adelaide had been married before, and that Ada is really his step-daughter, although I have yet to prove this.

Frederick, the third son named on the 1841 census return, was born on 26 December 1839 at 5 Mellick Place in the Parish of St Mary Magdalen in Bermondsey. Mellick Place looks like a slum in the photographs I was able to obtain from Southwark Local Studies Library, taken in 1935. As you can see, they must have looked the same a hundred years earlier, when the Bryers lived there. Frederick was still living with the family at the time of the 1851 census, and was described as a "scholar", although the amount of schooling he would have had would have been pitifully small. It was most likely this Frederick that witnessed his brother Walter James's marriage in 1867. He too had left the family home by the time of the 1871 census.

The fourth child that I have been able to find is Henry, born on 24 January 1843, at 15 Frederick Street, the same address the family had been living at in 1841. Henry sadly died, aged 4, on 6 December 1847. The family was living at Dyer's Buildings, Gravel Lane, in the parish of Saint Saviour, at the time of his death. You can see the location of Dyer's Buildings, situated between the London Chatham and Dover Railway and a Starch Works, on the later map of 1872.

In between Frederick Street and Dyer's Buildings, the family lived at 25 Lion Street. This was where the fifth son, Walter James, was born on 30 November 1845. On the map of 1872, reproduced here, you can see Lion Street just to the east of the famous Elephant and Castle public house , which stood at the junction between six roads - St George's Road, London Road, Newington Causeway, Newington Butts, Walworth Road, and the New Kent Road. The London, Chatham and Dover Railway (Herne Hill and City Branch) line runs almost alongside Lion Street, with Elephant and Castle Station prominently marked, although this part of the line was not opened until 1862. I was able to obtain photographs of this street also, taken in 1966, just before the old buildings in Lion Street were demolished. These look like typical tenement blocks built in mid-Victorian times to house the massive expansion in the population of London.

I suspect that I am missing a birth between 1845 and 1849, as John Henry and Emma were very consistent, one child every two years, and the next child I have found is Jane, born in around 1849 in the Parish of St George the Martyr Southwark. She appears on the 1851 census, aged 2 years, living with the family at 14 Collier's Rents; in fact they were still living there in 1853, an unusually long time given their previous rather nomadic existence! Of Jane, I know no more as yet. The census return is missing for their 1861 address and by 1871 she would have been 22 and most probably married. I shall continue to search for her.

On 13th May 1851, also at 14 Collier's Rents, a second daughter was born, Kate. She also would have been grown up and probably married by the time of the 1871 census, which is why she does not appear to be living with the family then. Her history has yet to be revealed.

A further child, Arthur, was born at 14 Collier's Rents, on 9th July 1853. Arthur is the only child, other than Walter James, for whom I have more detailed information of his later life. More about Arthur later.

Collier's Rents, as you can see on the map, was a short narrow dog-legged road just to the south of Guy's Hospital, in the Parish of St George the Martyr, Bermondsey. It was an old street, appearing on maps nearly a century earlier, and connecting White Street with Angel Place, an alley leading to Borough High Street. After the Second World War it was widened and re-aligned, and was renamed Tennis Street. All the buildings you can see in the photograph were destroyed in the Second World War, so no flavour of Victorian conditions can be obtained from a visit to the street. However, the photograph shows us one single door and many windows, suggesting a tenement housing many families. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the King's Bench Prison and the White Lion Prison were next door, and Marshalsea, the debtor's prison, was just a few streets away. Charles Dickens' father was imprisoned in Marshalsea in 1824, and the young Charles lived in Lant Street, on the opposite side of Borough High Street from Collier's Rents. He knew the area well, and commemorated it in at least one of his novels, notably Little Dorrit. The area was, not to put too fine a point on it, a slum and the haunt of criminals, and the people and surroundings must have made it hard for a respectable family to bring up six children. It is a wonder they lived there for so long.

John Henry continued his work as a journeyman hatter, but he was dreaming of a better life, and by 1855 the family had severed their ties to Southwark and had moved to the Parish of St Giles in the Fields, sandwiched between St Martins in the Fields (Trafalgar Square) and St George Bloomsbury (the British Museum). John Henry and Emma had, by now, celebrated twenty years of marriage and the births of at least eight children.

The Cab Proprietor of St Giles

Emily Louisa Bryer was born on 15th July 1855 at 21 Tavistock Mews, a short mews street just behind Tavistock Square, approximately where Herbrand Street is today. Nothing remains of the old street today, I walked around the area in February but could not find a trace, as there was considerable bomb damage during the Second World War. In 1855, John Henry was still describing himself as a journeyman hatter, but I suspect that there had been a change in his fortunes, enabling him to take his still growing family to a different part of London and to reinvent himself as a Cab Proprietor. Perhaps he was the beneficiary of a family will, perhaps one of his children married into a middle class family. I have not yet found the reason. I do not have a copy of the 1861 census for this address as it seems to be missing from the archives, so I cannot tell which of the children was still living at home at the time. I do, however, have the birth certificates of Amelia (born 11 May 1859) Ernest William (born 18 Jan 1862), and Alfred Edward (born 30 May 1864). All three were born at 21 Tavistock Mews, and on all three certificates John Henry was described as Cab Proprietor. It is interesting to note that , at the time of Alfred Edward's birth, his father was 50 years old and his mother was 48. His nephew William (son of Walter James and Phoebe) was born only three years later.

At the time of the 1871 census, John Henry and Emma's family still living at home, consisted of Thomas aged 33, cabdriver, Arthur aged 17, farrier, Amelia aged 11, William (Ernest William) aged 9, and Alfred aged 6. At the time of the 1881 census it had shrunk even further. Only William, aged 19 and a wheelwright, and Alfred, aged 16 a brassworker, lived at home with John Henry and Emma.

Amelia Bryer went into service, and in 1881 census can be found with sister Emily as servants in the house of Israel Cohen, a merchant of 56 Tavistock Square St Pancras, just round the corner from the Bryer family home. For a time around the 1891 census she lived with her brother Alfred, keeping house for him at 29 Argyle Square, St Pancras. Alfred was a cab driver and Amelia's occupation was described as "house duties (domestic)". Amelia was the informant to the registrar at the time of John Henry's death in 1885 and again in 1890 when Emma died.

As I mentioned in Newsletter 1, John Henry died of bronchitis in 1885, aged 71 years. Emma lived for five more years and died, aged 74, on 27th November 1890, also of bronchitis. Of those 74 years, she had spent 30 years bearing children, and had come through each confinement, a remarkable achievement given the sanitary conditions, the medical knowledge, and the poverty of the times.

Arthur Bryer and family

Arthur, when he did marry and leave home, did not go far. I found him and his family living at 14 Tavistock Mews from 1881 to at least 1894. Arthur married Louise Newton on 20th May 1877 at the Church of the United Parish of St Andrew by the Wardrobe and St Ann, in the City of London. From Louisa's entry in the 1891 census return she appears to have been born in the City of London (possibly in St Mary Magdalene parish), the daughter of Charles Jonathan Newton. Both she and Arthur were living at 4 Huish Court, in the parish, at the time of the marriage, and Arthur was described as a Stableman. Please see the Family Chart for this family.

Their first child was Louisa, born in 1878, followed swiftly by Arthur C. J. born in 1879. In the 1881 census, the family consisted of these two, aged 3 years and 18 months respectively. The next child that I have found was Frederick Charles, born on 21st February 1883. Sadly, Frederick died aged 10 weeks, on 14th April 1883, the cause of death being given as "Found dead, suffocation in bed, accidental". An inquest was held on 18th April 1883, and the coroner returned a verdict of accident. This is the first instance I have seen of a cot death. Arthur and Louisa were equally unfortunate in their next child, Ernest, who was born prematurely on 6th December 1883, and died four days later on the 10th.

Arthur and Louisa were undaunted, and a year later on 22nd December 1884, Emily Daisy was born. By this time, Arthur was describing himself as a Horsekeeper. I was fortunate to be able to find a marriage certificate for Emily Daisy. She married Charles William Harris, a shoeing smith, at the Church of St Bartholomew Gray's Inn Road, on 25th December 1907. At the time the couple were living at 32 Frederick Street, WC. She was 23 years old at the time of the marriage and her groom was 26. The next child was Lily Grace, born in 1886. I do not yet have the birth certificate, but I do have her marriage certificate. She married Alfred Alexander Victor Hahn on 19th May 1907 at Old St Pancras Church. Alfred Alexander was a baker, 21 years old, the son of Wilhelm Hahn, also a baker. Wilhelm had been born around 1851 in Germany, and I do not know when he emigrated to Britain, but he appears in the 1881 census, living at 186 Kentish Town Road, St Pancras, with Essex-born wife Mary and sons William and Harry, aged 2 years and 2 weeks respectively.

Tragedy struck the Bryer family once again in 1890 when fifteen-month-old Jenny died from "Convulsions, Inflammation of the brain" caused by head injuries after a fall down stairs. An inquest was held on the 8th February, and the coroner returned a verdict of accidental death. In the 1891 census returns, they are listed as living at number 20 Tavistock Mews, and the family consisted of Arthur and Louisa, Arthur C. J. aged 11, Louisa aged 13, Beatrice aged 9, Emily Daisy aged 6, Lily Grace aged 4, and May aged 6 months. Arthur was still described as a horsekeeper, so he does not seemed to have inherited John Henry's cab company. In addition, Louisa's brother Joseph Newton aged 18 and a factory packer was lodging with the family, together with Thomas Spinks a 28-year-old wheelwright, and Alfred Sapper, 37, a carman (Thomas Spinks had been lodging with John Henry and Emma at 21 Tavistock Mews in the 1881 census). The mews houses of Tavistock Mews seem to have been single-family occupancy, as the Bryers had the whole of number 20 to themselves, a luxury in London at this time!

Elsie Kate Bryer was born to Arthur and Louisa on 27th May 1894. So far I have not discovered any more about her.

There is at least one other child, Frederick Alfred, who was born in about 1896. So far I have only found notice of his death. He was a driver in the Royal Field Artillery (83rd Battery, 11th Brigade) and he died in battle in Flanders, on 14th April 1918. He was 22 years of age, and he is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing (Panels 4, 5, 6, 162) close to the town of Ypres. At the time of his death, his parents were living at 1 Luard Street, Caledonian Road, Islington.

Click here for an overall map of Southwark, showing the relative positions of addresses lived in by John Henry and Emma BRYER.

Acknowledgements

All photographs were obtained from Southwark Local Studies Library, Borough High Street, London. This is an excellent source of information for Southwark, Newington, and Rotherhithe, and covers both local and family history materials.

All maps are small extracts of Alan Godfrey large scale maps of London.

The photograph of St Mary's Newington I found in an old book on Southwark.

Postscript

There is still much to discover about this fascinating family and I hope that I am able to bring you further news of them in the next newsletter.

If you would like to contact me with your own memories, family documents, photographs, or indeed anything you would like to contribute to the family history, then I should be very grateful.