After a short break from genealogy I’ve decided to return to my paternal line and check my research on my great great grandfather’s family. Thomas Brittain was born in 1834 and married Mary Couling in April 1863. They had seven children, the youngest of whom was my great grandfather, George Francis Brittain, born in 1881.
I located the family in the 1871 and 1881 censuses which together gave the names of all the children:
- Minnie Adelaide, born 1864
- Thomas W, born 1866
- Elizabeth, born 1868
- Rose, born 1871, died 1873.
- Rose Rebecca, born 1875
- John, born 1879
- George Francis (my great grandfather) born 1881
In 1871 the family lived in Church Way, St Pancras. This was a narrow street in Somerstown which led from Chalton Street to the Euston Road. By 1881 they had moved to King Street, which was just a short walk away.
So, what happened to each of the children? Minnie married Henry Buck in 1881 at Old St Pancras Church,which is where Thomas married Alice Bentley in 1884.
Old St Pancras Church © Copyright pam fray and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence
Elizabeth married William Gulliford at All Saints Church, Camden, in 1889. In 1894, Rose Rebecca married William Preston Franklin at Holy Trinity Church, Haverstock Hill.
John married Helen Wiltshire in 1901 at the Register Office in Islington, and my great grandfather, George Francis, married Helen’s sister Elizabeth (Betsey) in the same year at St Pancras Register Office.
I think now I’m going to try to find out more about them all – in particular John, who appears to have been an inmate of an Industrial School in 1891. What had led him there?
All Roads Led to London 