Thread: Mystery surrounds my amazing GGAunt

I have an interesting GGAunt and her relationship with my GGrandmother that someone with knowledge of Victorian times might be able to answer.



My GGrandmother Alice Leaper was born in Sept 1852 in Halstead, Essex, the first born (I think) of Ephraim and Henrietta Leaper. Just over a year before (April 1851), my GGrandmother's aunt, Amelia Leaper had married a Thomas Henry Brooke.



The 1861 census shows Amelia and Thomas Brooke (a printer) living in Walcot, Bath. Also in the house was my GGrandmother Alice, aged 8, a niece, but her place of birth is registered, wrongly, as Harwich, Kent. My GGrandmother's parents were still alive and with further offspring, still living in Halstead.



On the 1871 census, GGAunt Amelia is, supposedly, widowed and in Mayair, London, as the housekeeper to the famous Victorian Sculptor John Bell. Also in the house is GGrandmother Alice, aged 18, but this time down as a visitor and this time registered as being born in London.



As Bath is so far from Halstead and it seems a strange coincidence that my GGrandmother should happen to be with my GGAunt on both times the census was taken, I assume my GGAunt brought her up.



But would this have been unusual and why did they lie on the census? Also Thomas Henry Brooke must have died between 1861 and 1871, yet I can find no death certificate?



(Interestingly GGAunt Amelia went on to marry Obadiah Spurgeon, an uncle of the great Victorian evangelist Charles Haddon Spurgeon and lived with my GGrandmother after he died. At the age of 91 and in line with the suffragettes and the civil disobedience she had her name erased from the 1911 census. She eventually died in 1922 at the grand old age of 102.)

Amelia sounds an interesting character!



I have various instances of (often) childless couples having their niece living with them. It meant the child's parents had more room at home for their siblings, the niece could be company /errand girl for the aunt/uncle and get board and lodging in return.



Birthplaces are often wrongly recorded - I don't think this necessarily means lying (after all if you wanted to tell a falsehood you would probably stick to the same falsehood rather than making up two different birthplaces for different censuses). It might be a transcription error, perhaps when the enumerator copied from the household sheet onto the sheets we see now, or maybe wrongly recorded in the first place. My own grandfather's birthplace is wrongly recorded on his 1972 death cert and his own son - who had been to his birthplace - didn't notice.

Thanks for your reply Helen.



I can see that Halstead might have been misheard as Harwich but "London" is way out.



Thanks for your input on the instances of children being brought up by relatives – this sort of detail is rarely covered in any social history books of the era.