This week I am concentrating on The 1911 Census return for a house in Acton, London. In 1911, Grace Walker, my grandmother, before she married William Wilcox, had moved to London from Offord D’Arcy in Huntingdonshire, to lives with a cousin.
The address is 39, Mill Hill Road, Acton. It is a large house, three stories high, probably with a basement or cellar. I am uncertain about the attic rooms and don’t know if they are original or additions over the past century. The house has a side door with steps, a wall around it prevented me from seeing anything at the back. It is a deep set house, end of a terrace that is not typical of the street higher up.
The house at 39 Mill Hill Road, Acton, London, where my grandmother was living in 1911 at the age of 20. (photo by the author).
The head of the house is Jane Wilkins, and she is running a boarding house. The only non-boarders are Jane’s daughter Constance and my grandmother, Grace Walker who is described as Cousin.
It is an intriguing list of residents and by age they range from under one month to 40. I would be interested to see the living arrangements. In the Census return form, Jane states that there are eight rooms in the house, but the Enumerator has crossed that out and put six instead. The 1911 Census in London was a self-filling form in which the Head of the household was expected to fill in the details and then return the form to the enumerator when they called. There probably were more rooms but not officially bedrooms and living quarters. Perhaps my grandmother was lodging in the basement.
What intrigued me when I first saw this return was that it was an all-female household with only one male, George Hurst, who was a newborn baby.
What frustrated me more was that it was incredibly challenging to search records for any of the residents at number 39 other than my grandmother. ‘Could be’ is never an accurate way of research. Three of the women are married and searching for a married woman without her husband’s details does not help on the regular search sites. Neither does searching for the children when both parents’ information is missing and that means that confirming a potential record becomes problematic.
So, here is a copy of the Census return for 1911.
1911 Census Return, Grace Wilcox, Crown Copyright, National Archives, London.
And here is a transcript of the return.
| Name | Relationship to Head of Household | Age | Marital Status | Occupation | Employed or working on own account | Where Employed | Birthplace |
| Jane Wilkins | Head | 40 | Married | Monthly Nurse | Own Account | At Home | Kentish Town London |
| Constance Wilkins | Daughter | 13 | – | School | Shepherd’s Bush London | ||
| Grace Walker my grandmother | Cousin | 20 | Single | Clerk | Laundry | Offord D’Arcy, Huntingdonshire | |
| Eliza Ward | Boarder | 34 | Married | Private Means | Gloucester | ||
| Kathleen Ward | Boarder | 2 months | – | Acton, London | |||
| Ada Mason | Boarder | 29 | Single | Governess | Out of Work | Paddington, London | |
| Minnie Harris | Boarder | 23 | Married | Tailoress | Worker | Wolverhampton, Staffordshire | |
| Maud Hurst | Boarder | 26 | Married | Private Means | Bruton, Somerset | ||
| George Hurst | Boarder | under one month | Acton, London | ||||
| Barbara Baker | Boarder | 2 | Nottingham, Nottinghamshire. |
The novelist William Boyd, in his introduction to his recent novel, ‘The Romantic’, a fictitious journal of a man’s life and adventures, says, in his introduction, that when a person leaves nothing to tell their story, all we have left are official records, registrations and Census returns from which to make assumptions and create a story.
All I can do is, mostly, to make assumptions about this household at number 39.
Jane is my grandmother’s cousin. From what side of the family, I have not discovered, but she was born in Kentish Town in north London, and that will give me a clue for future searches, after I have written this story. Jane is married, but to whom, again, I am unsure. Her husband is not staying in the house on the day of the Census count. Jane has been married for 15 years and has a daughter, Constance, living with her, and she is at school. This makes her a second cousin to Grace Walker.
Jane is described as a Monthly Nurse. This was a role that, before the development of the midwifery profession later in the 20th Century, was performed by women with experience of childbirth. They were not medically trained and their knowledge was gained from experience or word of mouth. They would attend for a limited time, maybe a few visits, several days, up to four weeks, a mother and baby in the postnatal period. This was, of course a service provided to those who could afford it because very often the Monthly Nurse would live in. It was a growth industry during the 19th century and by the 1901 Census (England and Wales), there were 22,000 Monthly Nurses recorded as a means of work. The role has almost vanished in Britain but in many other parts of the world, the Monthly Nurse exists in many shapes and forms.
On the face of it one can assume that Jane was out and about offering her services to various households, and when I search along the columns on the form, I see that she works on her own account, not employed by a firm or doctor, but more importantly for my story, she was ‘working – at home’. There was more to this household than meets the eye.
Grace Walker, my grandmother, was aged 20 and yet to meet William Wilcox who was a dairyman and living a short distance up the road. Grace was working as a clerk in a Laundry. This would, I assume, be a large commercial laundry and my grandmother’s ability to maintain proper books and look after the money was started at an early age. Anyone who knew my grandmother would know that she was very good at managing money and using it wisely. Her role in the house is simply that she is a cousin, related to the head of the household. How long she has been living there, I don’t know, but she has obviously arrived in London as young woman seeking her fortune.
Everyone else was described as a Boarder.
It is when I study their status and where they were born and who they have with them, that I begin to make assumptions.
Eliza Ward has travelled from Gloucester and given birth to baby Kathleen who is just 2 months old. Eliza is 34, married and living with Private Means. She has come to London to lodge with Jane Wilkins to have her child. Why could she not stay in Gloucester ?
Maud Hurst has travelled from Somerset and has just given birth to George who is not yet one month old. Maud has been married for four years and has, according to the additional columns of the Census return that I have not listed, had two children, one who has died. Maud has no occupation and is living by Private Means.
Neither Eliza nor Maud have their husbands living with them. It is 1911 and not in war time, so the question arises, why did these women travel such distances to have their children ? They have arrived from a city or town that would have had access to a monthly nurse. Was Jane Wilkins running a boarding house to enable women to have their children anonymously or out of the eyes of their family and community ?
The last person on the return is two year old Barbara Baker and she was born in Nottingham. Who does she belong to, where is her mother ? Barbara was born in Nottingham. The problem is that she is living in the house as a boarder. Has she been left in Jane’s care for some reason that is not clear from the Census return ?
Finally, the other two boarders, Ada Mason and Minnie Harris allow interesting assumptions to be made. Minnie is married and is a Tailoress, a worker, who was born in Wolverhampton. She has been married for a year. Has she travelled from Wolverhampton to work in London away from her husband ? Or is she expecting to have a baby ?
Ada Mason may well be a legitimate boarder. She was born not far away in Paddington. Ada describes herself as a Governess, ‘out of work’. a Governess was usually employed by a middle class or wealthy family as a live in teacher for children the family wanted educated at home. The very nature of the job entailed living as a member of the family’s household. Ada is out of work and living as a boarder in Jane’s house. Babies do not require a Governess. Is Ada also expecting a child ?
These are difficult assumptions that I am making from this Census return and I am doing my best to be non-judgemental. All credit to Jane Wilkins if she is supporting these women as boarders in difficult circumstances.
Knowing my grandmother as well as I do, I cannot imagine for an instance that she would board with her cousin in this house unless she approved of the reasons for these women to be living under the same roof.