Is it illegal to change your name, without going through the legal route of deed poll ? Not according to the National Archives. As long as a person does not change their name for illegal or fraudulent reasons, it is not illegal to change, for example, a surname.
“It is still perfectly legal for anyone over the age of 16 to start using a new name at any time, as long as they are not doing so for a fraudulent or illegal reason.” (National Archives, with their caveat that this is not legal advice they are giving).
This week I am writing about my Great Aunt Margaret. Margaret Mildred Marie Wilcox as she was registered. Marguerite as she later called herself as an adult until she died when her registration certificate entered her as Margaret. Of more interest is her change of surname when she moved to Tredegar in Wales. Marguerite Francis, as she became, married Lewis Williams and became legal once again when she took on her husbands name in marriage.
If she wanted to disappear, she did this well because it has been a struggle identifying her from the public records available. Confirmation of some information was due to a field trip to Tredegar and information shared by my cousin who lives there.
Margaret was the seventh child of John Thomas and Lenna Wilcox, my Great Grandparents. She was born in December 1884. I cannot find her birth certificate online but I have found her birth registration which confirms her year of birth, as does the following School’s Admissions Register.
The Wornington Road School admissions and discharge register. Maggie Wilcox is entry number 4520 born in December 1884 (London, England, Schools Admissions and Discharge, 1840-1911. ancestry.com)
Margaret, or Maggie as the school described her, attended Wornington Road School in what is known as the Golborne, part of Kensington. This was Margaret’s closest school when she and her family were living in Portobello Road. It opened in 1874 to replace the local Ragged School. It soon became overcrowded and by the time Margaret arrived there she was one of 813 pupils crammed into ten classrooms. Wornington Road School has a long and important history in this area of Kensington and provided education for children up until the 1970’s when it was converted to college and further education. Its importance and relevance can be found in this interesting post from the Grenfell Action Group website.
Attending Wornington Road School would have forced Margaret to rub shoulders with children from many different backgrounds, many living in poverty and also suffering from a variety of diseases and other challenges. It would have put her in a good position to understand hardship wherever she worked and lived.
What Margaret did next is unrecorded. She does appear in the 1901 Census return. She and her family had moved back to Acton, Somerset Road, and Margaret was 16 years old. There is no entry for her occupation. My guess is that she would have left school at the age of 15 and got her first occupation. Margaret’s younger brother George was listed and he was occupied as a Newspaper Office Boy. The Wilcox entry for 1901 is interesting because Lenna’s Mother had moved in with them but Lenna herself was not present at the count that day. Also, John Thomas was described as a Decorator but not as an employer but as a Worker.
The absence of occupation for Margaret continues into the 1911 Census return. She was still living in Somerset Road with her parents and her two younger brothers, William (my Grandfather) and John who were 21 and 18 and working as Dairy Men, occupations that they continued for the rest of their lives. However, Margaret, or now known as Marguerite, had no occupation. Her parents were in the house and John Thomas was still a House Decorator. The mystery of Marguerite’s absence of a job might be that she was caring for her Mother perhaps and looking after the house, her father and brothers. There is no information available to confirm anything about her life at this stage.
The 1911 Census return for the Wilcox family in Somerset Road, Acton. (England and Wales Census, 1911, National Archives)
The only other record for Marguerite in London is her Confirmation Card from 1904. I have pondered before about Margaret’s religious life. Whether she had been brought up as a church going member is uncertain and I have my doubts. It interests me that she committed herself to Confirmation at the age of 20. Still living at home, possibly caring for her parents, the Church may have been an important outlet for her.
Marguerite’s Confirmation card, 1904. (From the collection of Margaret Hill)
Five years after the 1911 Census there are three important events to note.
Firstly, in September 1913 Margaret’s mother, Lenna Wilcox, died. She was aged 61.
A year later in 1914 John Thomas Wilcox, Margaret’s father, died. He was aged 63.
1914 was a year that saw the start of the First World War.
Lastly, and most importantly, and with no parents to look after, Margaret, in 1916 had moved to Tredegar in the Welsh Valleys, and married Lewis Williams.
1916 was a year dominated by the First World War and the Easter Rising in Ireland. Zeppelin airships were bombing London.
Between 1914 and 1916, Margaret decided to join her two brothers, Frederic and George, both working in the Coal Mines in Tredegar, and very quickly had met Lewis Williams. Margeret and Lewis were married in July 25th 1916 in the Baptist Nazareth Chapel in Llanelly.
I have tried to do as much research online to find the Nazareth Chapel but it has been proving a challenge to find some accurate photos to share. The parish of Llanelly is a short way from Crickhowell and about three miles from Tredegar. My guess is that Lewis Williams was a member of this chapel and in future posts I shall try and trace his family.
One question that interests me is that Margaret was marrying Lewis in the Baptist Church and she was a confirmed member of the Church of England. I wonder what discussions took place. If the Baptist church also adhered to the practice of Banns of marriage then it might have been interesting if anyone turned up to protest about Marguerite’s change of surname !
The story of Margaret in Wales is more interesting when you study the details in her Marriage Certificate.
Margaret’s two brothers, Frederic and George, left London in mysterious circumstances and changed their surname from Wilcox to Francis. Frederic was the first to do this and George followed suit. Fred had William Francis as his middle names and dropping Wilcox in favour of Francis was clever. He didn’t have to invent a name and also it had Welsh sounding connections that officials were unlikely to question.
There was nothing left in London for Margaret. Her brother possibly persuaded her to come to their new town where she would not feel alone and where they probably also knew that ther were many men looking for a good wife. Margaret was approaching 30 when she arrived in Wales.
Consequently she had to live the same identity lie as her brothers. She was no longer a Wilcox but a Francis and that is what she tells the Registrar.
Margaret’s older brother Fred was there as a witness as was also someone called Augustus Hopkins. I have made a quick Census search on Augustus and have found a Hopkins family in Sirhowy, Tredegar and Augustus is aged 17. If this man was a witness at Margaret’s wedding he would have been 22 years old.
The Third witness was Margaret’s younger sister Bessie. She had to take part in the identity change as well, she is now Bessie Wilcox Francis. Just a little lie then, Wilcox to Francis for a day.
What of other people listed on the Registration? Margaret’s father is named as John Thomas Francis (Deceased). Well, he was in no position to feel guilty about this identity change.
The Francis family had their mission accomplished. Margaret had arrived in Wales to settle in Tredegar close to her brothers. She had only to be a Francis for a short time before meeting Lewis, and marrying into her new name of Williams.
Between 1916 and 1922, Margaret and Lewis had three children.
Gwynneth Betty Sinclair Williams was born in the spring of 1918. In her registration of birth her Mother’s maiden name is Wilcox-Francis. Margaret has turned he original name into a double barrelled surname. Gwynneth died in 2004. I can find no record that she ever married.
Raymond Lewis Williams was born in July 1921. Raymond never married, according to my cousin Margaret in Tredegar. He died in 2018 at the age of 97. It was because of Raymond’s death that I amongst all my family and Wilcox family members were contacted by an heir hunter to enable a portion of Raymond’s estate distribution.
Lionel Etienne Sinclair Williams was born in 1922. There is a marriage registration for a Lionel E.S. Williams which by accessing this will confirm that Lionel did marry. This is dated 1970 and so he would have been 48 years old. Lionel died in 1995.
The information on Marguerite’s three children was provided from the family tree of my cousin Bethan in Tredegar.
So, there was no fraud or illegal activity going on with regards the name changes. If Fred and George had escaped London to start new lives for whatever reasons, they probably did the right thing. They led good and worthwhile lives in Tredegar at an important time in the UK’s development. Margaret joined them to live a life after her parents died. She had probably been their main carer.
Margaret died on 2nd June 1934, eighteen years after marrying Lewis. She was just 48 years old and had died of ulcerative colitis which is a debilitating disease that Margaret may have been living with for some time. She died while being treated in The Cottage Hospital, Tredegar.
Lewis died a few months later in the same year.
Both Margaret and Lewis were interred in the same grave in Dukestown Cemetery which is just above the town of Tredegar, overlooking the valleys.
I shall be returning to Margaret Wilcox and her story in future posts about her husband and her three children.