LIFE GOES ON: AN INTRODUCTION
MY GRANDPARENTS - I - MY GREAT-GRANDPARENTS - I - MY GREAT-GREAT-GRANDPARENTS - I - MY GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GRANDPARENTS
THE SIXTEEN FAMILIES
KNOTT - I - BOWLES - I - WATERS - I - HARRALL - I - PAGE - I - WISEMAN - I - CROSS - I - CARTER
CORNWELL - I - HUCKLE - I - MORTLOCK - I - MANSFIELD - I - REYNOLDS - I - CARTER - I - ANABLE - I - STEARN
CHRONOLOGY - I - DRAMATIS PERSONAE - I - WHERE PEOPLE CAME FROM - I - CALENDAR
MAP OF ELY - I - MAP OF MEDWAY
MAP OF CAMBRIDGE AND DISTRICT
THE WORKHOUSE
WORLD WAR I - I - WORLD WAR II
simonknott.co.uk I home I e-mail
The Harrall family: out of the pages of Charles Dickens
My Father's Father's Mother's Mother's family
The narrative can be read in conjunction with the Knott family tree. You can see places significant to the Harrall family on the site map of the Medway
This family story includes material from, and links with, the stories of the Knott, Bowles, and Waters families. My direct ancestors are highlighted in bold the first time they appear in the narrative.
Even today it is easy to get lost in the narrow lanes of the Hoo peninsula, despite the proximity of the Medway Towns. This is the marsh country of Charles Dickens' novel Great Expectations. My great-great-great-grandfather John Harrall was born in Hoo St Werbergh on 18th January 1815. Six weeks later he was taken to be baptised at Zoar chapel in the nearby town of Strood, because his parents, my great-great-great-great-grandparents Daniel Harrall and Sophia Youell, were non-conformist farmers. Daniel himself was from a protestant dissenting family in Sible Hedingham in Essex, not far from the Suffolk border, but he married Sophia in Chalk in Kent in 1811, by which time both of them were residents of the parish. In 1838, Sophia died, and was buried in St Werburgh's churchyard on 29th June. Later the same year, Daniel married again, to Mary Grigsby of Newington. Thanks to the Zoar Chapel records, immaculately kept by the protestant dissenting minister Thomas Drew, and the registers of Hoo St Werburgh parish, it is possible to list the children of Daniel and Sophia and then of Daniel and Mary:
Edward Harrall
Born at Frindsbury, Kent on 30th October 1812, and baptised at Zoar Chapel, Strood on 13th December. Edward must have died before the age of 24, because Daniel and Sophia had another son in 1836 to whom they gave the same name. However, his burial is not in the Hoo St Werburgh registers, and so he probably died in adulthood after moving elsewhere. The likely time period is 1830-36 - unfortunately, before civil registration began.
John Harrall
Born at Hoo, Kent on 18th January 1815, and baptised at Zoar Chapel, Strood on 5th March. My great-great-great-grandfather - see below.
Sophia Harrall
Born at Hoo, Kent on 12th July 1817, and baptised at Zoar Chapel, Strood on 31st August. Sophia does not appear on the 1841 census in her father's house, but she may well have been married or living elsewhere. She does not appear in the Hoo St Werbergh marriage or burial registers for the intervening period.
Daniel Harrall
Born at Hoo, Kent on 18th January 1820, and baptised at Zoar Chapel, Strood on 5th March. He died at the age of one year and four months, and was buried in Hoo St Werburgh churchyard on 8th February 1822.
Jemima Harrall
Born at Hoo, Kent on 6th March 1822, and baptised at Zoar Chapel, Strood on 31st March. Jemima was recorded on the 1841 census in her father's household as being 20 years old. She married Thomas William Whitebread at Higham on the 12th February 1843. They had four children, Thomas William, Rosina, George and Alfred, and at the time of the 1861 census were living at Blacklands in Frindsbury parish, where Thomas was a farmer of 200 acres.
George Harrall
Born at Hoo, Kent on 13th September 1824, and baptised at Zoar Chapel, Strood on 18th October. George was recorded on the 1841 census in his father's household as being 15 years old. By 1861, George was living with his wife Mary Ann and their children Robert and Michael in Finsbury, London. Curiously, George was not able to say exactly where in Kent he was born.
Jane Harrall
Born at Hoo, Kent on 28th October 1827, and baptised at Zoar Chapel, Strood on 2nd December. Jane was recorded on the 1841 census in her father's household as being 13 years old. She died in Hoo at the age of twenty-one, and was buried in St Werburgh's churchyard on 26th February 1849.
Daniel Earl Harrall
Born at Hoo, Kent on 20th February 1830, and baptised at Zoar Chapel, Strood on 21st March. Daniel does not appear at home on the 1841 census, although there is no death recorded in the Hoo St Werburgh registers for the intervening period.
Maria Harrall
Born Hoo, Kent, 1831. Maria does not appear to have been baptised at Zoar Chapel, Strood. She is recorded on the 1841 census in her father's household as being 10 years old. She gave birth to an illegitimate child, Margaret Elizabeth, at the start of 1851, and the child was baptised on 23rd March 1851 at St Werburgh's church. No father's name was recorded in the register. The child, Margaret Elizabeth, is shown as being 2 months old on the 1851 census, which was taken on 30th March. Also in the Harrall household on the night of the 1851 census was William harpum, a 16 year old live-in servant. Maria married William Harpum at Hoo St Werburgh on 7th June 1858, when the witnesses were Maria's father Daniel, who signed with a cross, and her half-sister Sarah. William and Maria had five further children, Charles, George, Jane, Sarah, and Alice. William was an agricultural labourer. It must be assumed that Margaret Elizabeth was also his child. The family lived at Wainscott, just over the border in Frindsbury parish, next door to Thomas Grigsby, who was probably Maria's step-uncle. Maria died in 1885.
There is then a gap of five years until
Born at Hoo, Kent on 9th October 1836. He died unbaptised at the age of four days, and was buried in Hoo St Werburgh churchyard on 13th October 1836.
William Harrall
Born at Hoo, Kent on 14th January 1837, and baptised at Zoar Chapel, Strood on 19th February. William's mother died when he was four months old. William was recorded on the 1841 census in his father's household as being 4 years old. He died in Hoo at the age of ten, and was buried in St Werburgh's churchyard on 20th November 1847.
Sarah Ann Harrall
Born Hoo, Kent 1842. Sarah was the daughter and apparently only child of Daniel and his second wife Mary. Sarah does not appear to have been baptised. She is recorded on the 1851 census in her father's household as being 9 years old. She witnessed her sister Maria's marriage at Hoo St Werburgh on 7th June 1858, when she was able to sign her own name. Sarah married local farm labourer Edward John Steadman at Hoo St Werburgh church on 10th October 1863, when she gave her address as Rose Hill Cottage, Hoo The witnesses were Henry George Steadman and Ellen Latter. Edward and Sarah had two sons, Thomas William and Edward John. At the time of the 1871 census, The Steadmans were living at the White House, Hoo with Sarah's mother Mary, and the address was also shared with two Lincolnshire-born farmers, William Queenborough and his brother Henry.
And then, something rather curious happens. By the time of the 1881 census, Sarah is living under the name Sarah Queenborough with William Queenborough at Westminster Bridge Road, Southwark in south London, where William was working as a labourer. The children Thomas William and Edward John Steadman are with her, and are described as step-sons of William Queenborough, while their mother Sarah is described as the wife of William Queenborough. But there is no record of the death of her first husband Edward Steadman in between, and there is no record of a marriage between William Queenborough and Sarah Ann Steadman. However, Edward Steadman is not immediately apparent on the 1881 census, or on censuses thereafter. One clue might be that, along with Sarah's children by her husband Edward, the couple had living with them in London the 9 year old Rosina Queenborough, who is presumably Sarah's daughter by William. Did Sarah fall pregnant while living in the White House, Hoo, forcing the couple to run away to London? And did Edward go abroad as a consequence? By 1891, Sarah was calling herself a widow, living under her Steadman surname in south London and working as a laundress, although there is no record of a death of either Edward Steadman or William Queenborough in the time since the last census. Her son Edward, a butcher's assistant, was living with her. By 1901 Sarah Steadman was running a lodging house in Newington, still describing herself as a widow. She died at the age of 79 on 7th October 1921 in the West Ham Union infirmary at Whipps Cross. Her address was given as Canterbury Road, Leyton and she left the £56 8s balance of her estate to her eldest son Thomas William Steadman, who was described as a commercial traveller.
John was shown on the 1841 census in Hoo as a maltman, and by 1847 he had moved a few miles west to Higham, for there on 17th October of that year he married a local girl, Mary Anne Martin in St Mary's parish church. Remarkably, one of my other great-great-great-grandparents from the other side of my family, Abraham Mansfield, was a prisoner in the hulks in the Thames Estuary off of Higham at exactly this time. The Rector of Higham who married John and Mary was the renowned Joseph Hindle, who was Rector of Higham for 45 years, between 1829 and 1874. Their first child was not born for three years, and then on 25th July 1850 their daughter Mary Ann Harrall was born, my great-great-grandmother. She was baptised at St Mary's church, Higham on 25th August 1850. When Mary Ann Harrall was baptised, her father's occupation was given as a labourer. John and Mary Anne went on to have six children, two of whom died in infancy:
Mary Ann Harrall
Born at Higham, Kent on 25th July 1850. My great-great-grandmother. See below.
Frederick Harrall
Born at Higham, Kent on 18th September 1853, and baptised at St Mary's church, Higham on 23rd October. The Harrall's first son, but he died shortly after his first birthday on 29th September 1854, and was buried in Higham churchyard on 1st October..
John Edward Harrall
Born at either Higham or Frindsbury, Kent on 18th October 1856, and baptised at St Mary's church, Higham on 16th November, when his parents' place of residence was given as Frindsbury, the next parish to Higham. John was the Harrall's second son, but he was also to die in infancy at the age of just ten months on 20th August 1857, and was buried in Higham churchyard on 23rd August. My great-great-grandmother was seven years old by this time, and was once again an only child.
George Edward Harrall
Born at Higham, Kent on 18th November 1858, and baptised at St Mary's church, Higham on 19th December. he was baptised George Frederick, with his deceased eldest brother's name as a middle name. However, after this George was referred to as George Edward Harrall. George was the eldest son to survive into adulthood. He was living with his parents at Higham in 1861 and in Newington in 1871, but he married Eliza Hale in Epsom, Surrey in the third quarter of 1880. Eliza was born in Berkshire, but in 1881 they were back in Kent at North Street, Strood. On the 1881 census he was described as an engine driver, the same as the husband of his sister Mary Ann, George Waters. George Harrall was dead by the time of the 1901 census. His widow Eliza was living at 36 Gun Lane, Strood with their children George (a stationary engine driver), Frederick Charles (a traction engine driver), Florence Eliza and another child called Frederick, recorded as Eliza's son but possibly a nephew. At the age of 30, Frederick Charles Harrall married Rose Wire at St Nicholas's church, Strood on 10th July 1915. His sister Florence was one of the witnesses. At the time of the 1925 Kelly's Directory, Frederick and Rose were living at 3 Temple Gardens, Cuxton Road, Strood, around the corner from the family of Frederick's cousin Mary Ann Knott, my great-grandmother.
Sophie Harrall
Born Higham, Kent on 5th March 1861, and baptised at St Mary's church, Higham on 7th April. The Harralls other daughter, Sophie was with her parents in Higham in 1861, Newington in 1871 and then back in Higham in 1881, but by 1884 she was in London, and on the 5th October that year she married the Bethnal Green-born Sidney John Banks at Walthamstow. They lived at Stoke Newington and then Camberwell in London, and had five children, Robert, Bessie, Zoe, Mabel and Percy.
Walter John Harrall
Born Higham, Kent in December 1863, and baptised at the new St John's church in Upper Higham on 28th February 1864. He was given the second deceased son's name as a middle name. He was with his parents in Higham in 1861, Newington in 1871 and then back in Higham in 1881, and then he married a girl from a local Higham family, Sophia Rolfe, on 28th February 1885 at St Mary's church, Higham. They lived in Higham. They had eight children, Lena, Frederick, Emily, John, Elsie, Lydia, Ivy and Arthur. Frederick (born Higham 1887) and John, known as Jack (born Higham 1891) both fought in World War I, and are mentioned on the Roll of Honour in St Mary's church. Frederick's medal record records his home address as 3 Dairy Farm Cottages, Lower Higham, and this was probably the address of Walter and Sophie. Frederick was with the Royal Field Artillery, first as a gunner and then as a tank corporal. His medal record suggests that he served in the Middle East. Jack was a private in the Kings Royal Rifle Corps. He served in France, arriving there on 28th April 1915. Both of them survived the War.
When my great-great-grandmother Mary Ann Harrall was seven years old, Charles Dickens himself moved to her home village of Higham. He would have been a familiar sight to the Harrall family, because he was well-known for wandering around country lanes, talking to working people. He used many of these conversations in his novels, and turned some of those he met into characters. I wonder what they thought of him? I wonder if any of the Harralls are disguised among his characters? The Higham registers for the period are meticulously well-kept, not least because they were the work of Joseph Hindle. Hindle was a great friend of Dickens: he had been living at Gad's Hill when Dickens bought it, and Dickens allowed Hindle to carry on living there while his new house, the Knowle, was built. The Knowle still exists as an up-market restaurant.
The eleven year old Mary Ann Harrall was with her parents in Higham in 1861. Her grandfather Daniel Harrall died in 1863, and he was buried in Hoo St Werburgh churchyard on 23rd August. His second wife Mary died at the age of 72, and was buried with him on 4th November 1871. By then, John and Mary Anne and their family had moved a few miles across the River Medway and beyond the Medway Towns to Newington, and in Newington Mary Ann Harrall met my great-great-grandfather George Herbert Waters, from a local family. A few months after the 1871 census, on 15th October, they married at Newington parish church. In the registers, both their fathers were recorded as being labourers, but at the age of 22 George could describe himself as an engineer, a cut above the ordinary working classes in the mid-Victorian period. Engineers were in great demand during the height of the Industrial Revolution, and it is perhaps no surprise that a year after their marriage we find George and Mary Ann living hundreds of miles away from Kent in the slate mines of north-west Wales, at Llanferres in Denbighshire, where George worked as a stationary engine driver, probably in a quarry. They lived in a house called Tyn y Cornel, and it was there on the 11th August 1872 that their eldest daughter, my great-grandmother Mary Ann Waters was born. A second daughter, Beatrice, would follow soon after, and these would be the only two children that George and Mary Ann would have. A small family is often a mark of prosperity in later Victorian times. Interestingly, George and Mary Ann always gave 'North Wales' as the birthplace of their daughters on census returns, but in 1901 and 1911 Mary Ann stated her place of birth as the next door county of Flintshire, not Denbighshire, and in 1911 Beatrice gave her birth place as the mysterious-sounding 'Granamina'. However, about a mile from Llanferres, across the border in Flintshire, lies the large village of Gwernyminydd. To English ears this must sound very like Granamina. The two most likely possibilities are that their father George was working in Gwernyminydd, and Beatrice was remembering his workplace, or that the family actually moved to Gwernyminydd after the birth of both girls and they lived there for a few years, although they had left Wales by the time of the 1881 census. George and Mary Ann's children were:
Mary Ann Waters
Born Llanferres, Denbighshire, Wales, 11th August 1872. My great-grandmother. See below.
Beatrice Louisa Waters
Born Llanferres, Denbighshire, Wales in 1873. Beatrice married John Cox, a labourer, at St Nicholas's church, Strood on 28th September 1895. My great-grandfather William Knott, Beatrice's brother-in-law, was one of the witnesses. Beatrice's daughter Ivy Myrtle was born a little over a year later; she was baptised at St Nicholas's church Strood on 21st March 1897, when the family were living at 20 Temple Street. In 1901 they were still living in Rochester at Gas Lane, near to Beatrice's sister Mary Ann's family. However, Beatrice's husband John died in the third quarter of 1902, and by 1911 she is living as the wife of Charles Smith, an agricultural labourer, at Loose near Maidstone. Ivy was with them. Charles and Beatrice declare on the form that they have been married for nine years, but I have not found a trace of any such marriage. There were no further children up to 1911, by which time Beatrice was 37 years old. It is difficult to trace Beatrice and Charles's life after this. Her daughter Ivy married Frederick Perrin in Maidstone in 1917, and they had three children, Frederick, Leslie and Ivy. They were living in Havering, north London at the time of her husband's death in 1971. Ivy herself died at Kings Lynn, Norfolk in 1982.
Mary Ann Water's birth was registered with the four-letter form of the second name, Mary Anne, just as had been the case with her mother. Perhaps this was a mistake on the part of the registrar, or perhaps a sign of my great-great-grandparents aspirations. However, in the register when she married and on the self-referred 1911 census, Mary Anne would call herself Mary Ann; again, like her mother. The family moved back to Kent soon after Beatrice's birth, and were there for the 1881 census. The elder Mary Ann's mother Mary Harrall née Martin died in Higham in 1880 at the age of 55, and in 1881 the family were living in Faversham. George's father Thomas Waters died in Newington at the age of 86 in 1887. In the same year, Mary Ann's father John Harrall died in Higham, at the age of 70. John was buried beside his wife in Higham churchyard on the 17th November.
By 1891 the Waters family were living in the new upmarket houses of Bryants Terrace in Strood, a short walk from the home of the Knott family in Grange Road. On 3rd December 1892, Mary Ann married William Knott at St Mary's church, Strood, Kent, which was about halfway between their homes. Mary Ann was 20, and it was William's 23rd birthday. William's occupation was given as a factory labourer, and his father George's occupation was a labourer. Mary Ann's father George gave his occupation as an engine driver. Both signed the register, Mary Ann spelling her name without the final e. Mary Ann's witness was her sister, Beatrice Louisa. It is possible that the Knott and Waters families already knew each other before meeting in Strood. Twenty-one years earlier, at the time of the 1871 census, when the Waters family were living in Low Halstow, the Knott family were living in the next village of Upchurch, and they moved to Low Halstow shortly afterwards.
After the marriage, Mary Ann and her new husband moved into a house in Cuxton Road on the other side of Strood High Street, where their eldest daughter was born nine months later. William worked as a labourer in a cement factory. Another daughter was born in Cuxton Road, and then the family moved right into the centre of Strood on London Road. They were there for the birth of a daughter and for the 1901 census, before moving back to Cuxton Road. These are the children of William and Mary Ann:
Daisy Mary Knott
Born 1893 in Strood. Daisy was baptised at St Nicholas, Strood on September 13th. The registers show that the family were living at Cuxton Road, Strood, Kent. In 1901 she was staying with her grandparents George and Mary Ann Waters in Hitchin, Hertfordshire. In 1911 she was with them at the One Bell, the pub they kept at Wilmington near Dartford. On 3rd April 1912 she was married at St Michael's church, Wilmington. She gave her address as the One Bell public house, and so did her new husband Charles James Marchant, who gave his occupation as an instructor in physical culture. Her father William and her sister Gladys were witnesses. Interestingly, Daisy gave her age as 21. In fact, she was just 18. Her grandfather had died in 1911. It seems probable that she said she was 21 to enable them to be married under licence, but is it possible that she gave a false age to enable her to take on the running of the One Bell with Charles Marchant now that her grandfather was dead and her grandmother was infirm? Daisy was probably the Daisy Mary Merchant who died at Ashford in Kent in 1962. If so, her age was given as 61, but really she was a few months short of her 70th birthday.
Gladys Violet Knott
Born 1895 in Strood, Kent. Gladys was baptised at St Nicholas, Strood on December 29th. The registers show that the family were living at Tobin Villas, Cuxton Road, Strood, Kent. This is probably the name of a terrace and may well be the address they were living at in 1893. Gladys was the big sister that Joe grew up with. She was 13 years older than him. She was married at St Nicholas, Strood on 8th February 1919. She gave her address as 96 Temple Street, and so did her new husband Frederick Allen. Interestingly, her father William gave his occupation as stevedore, meaning a docker. Apart from the occasion of my grandparents' marriage in the 1930s, this is the only time I have found it recorded as anything other than a cement or brickfield worker. Gladys and Frederick probably lived in Strood, and are likely to be the household recorded under the name Frederick Allen at 11 Pearson Street, Strood, in the 1925 Kelly's Directory of Rochester, Chatham, Gillingham, etc. My father and uncle remember Gladys and her family visiting Joe and his family in Ely on at least two occasions in the 1940s. Gladys died in Chatham, Kent in 1980 at the age of 85.
Pansy Miriam Knott
Born 1897 in Strood, Kent. Pansy was baptised at St Nicholas, Strood on August 22. The registers show that the family were living at 12, Strood Hill. This is the same house as the family would be living at in 1901, 12 London Road. It sits at the bottom of Strood Hill a few doors from the famous Crispin and Crispianus Inn, at the start of Strood High Street, and is now a hairdresser's. Pansy died in the second quarter of 1898.
William George Knott
Born 1902 in Strood, Kent. William was baptised at St Nicholas, Strood, on 16th November. The registers show that the family were living at 11 St John's Terrace, Cuxton Road, Strood, Kent. St John's Terrace runs just to the north of Strood cemetery. William's name is too common in Kent to find his marriage without more information, but he is probably the William George Knott who died in Maidstone, Kent in 1988 at the age of 85.
Vincent Helgia 'Joe' Knott
born on the 15th of February at 34 West Hill, Dartford in Kent. My grandfather. See below.
Iris Alberta Knott
Born on Christmas Eve 1910 at 16 Providence Street, Greenhithe in Kent. She married George Gower in Strood in 1931, and lived to the fine old age of 91, dying in Rochester in 2002.
At some point in the 1890s, George's mother Mary Waters née Vokes died, probably in Newington. Her grand-daughter Mary Ann Knott did not leave Kent again, but Mary Ann's parents George and Mary Ann Waters did. At the time of the 1901 census, they were running the Horse & Jockey public house at Hitchin in Hertfordshire. George's occupation was given as a steamroller driver, but he appears again in the 1902 Kelly's Directory for Hertfordshire as a beer house keeper at the same address. Living with them was their grand-daughter, the 7 year old Daisy Mary Knott. George and Mary Ann Waters and their grand-daughter were back in Kent in 1911, and running the One Bell public house in Wilmington, just outside of Dartford.
This is interesting, because in the early years of the 20th Century, their daughter Mary Ann and her husband William Knott took their family some fifteen miles west from Strood to Dartford, for William to work in the vast cement works there. While they were there, their youngest son was born, Vincent Helgia Knott, my grandfather. He was born on the 15th of February at 34 West Hill, Dartford in Kent. The house still exists, on the main road into the centre of Dartford from London. Vincent Helgia was baptised at Holy Trinity, Dartford on 22nd April 1908. As a very young child, he would be put on the bar of the One Bell, the beerhouse then run by his mother's parents, and asked to sing. As a result, he acquired the nickname 'Joe' among the customers. He was called Joe by everyone who knew him for the rest of his life.
By the time of the 1911 census William and Mary Ann Knott had moved to Providence Street in Greenhithe on the outskirts of Dartford, on the edge of the cement works where William Knott worked. This is now the site of the Bluewater shopping centre. However, a few weeks after the census, Mary Ann's father George Waters died. He was buried in Wilmington churchyard. There is no headstone, and neither was there any at the time of the Duncan survey of memorial inscriptions in 1921, but the 1911 burials are collected together just to the north-west of the church, under an old redwood tree.
Before the start of the First World War, the Knott family were back in the Strood district of Rochester, living at 96 Temple Street, not far from William's parents in Grange Road. George Water's widow Mary Ann Waters was with them, because she died at the Temple Street house on 27th November 1914. Her daughter notified the death. Mary Ann was buried in plot A237 of Strood Cemetery, to the south of the cemetery chapel and end on to the Knott family plot.
Mary Ann Knott and her husband William would remain in Rochester for the rest of their lives. Joe 's family lived at 96 Temple Street throughout his childhood. William Knott's parents George and Mary Ann Knott were close at hand, and, while George was still working as a labourer, they opened a small sweetshop and general store in their Grange Road terraced house. The shop was in business at the time of both the 1901 and 1911 censuses, and is mentioned in street directories throughout the period.
Joe may have worked as a labourer in a cement works after he left school, but in about 1931 he left Rochester looking for work. The family continued to live in Temple Street, but it was badly bombed during the Second World War and finally demolished in the 1960s. The photograph above was taken just before the final demolition of the street - the houses on the left hand side are already boarded up. The identity of the woman is unknown. The location is now the site of Strood Tesco. In February 2011, while wandering around this area, I met an old couple who had both been children on Temple Street at the time Joe was growing up there. They were able to point out exactly where 96 Temple Street had been (now within the Tesco car park) and they gave me a vivid picture of life in the street at that time. They had not known the Knotts by name, but it felt like a remarkable touchstone.
Joe would not go back to live in the Medway Towns. In the early 1930s he worked on road-building projects in Yorkshire where he met Arthur Page, the brother of his future wife Phyllis. Arthur was another migrant worker, and Joe came back with him to East Anglia, where he met my grandmother. Joe went to work for British Sugar at Cantley in east Norfolk, but he married Phyllis Page at Ely Register Office on 15th August 1932, when he was 24 and she was just 19. Joe's address was 9 Council Cottages Cantley. Interestingly, he gave the occupation of his father as Greengrocer, suggesting that perhaps William had taken over the running of his father's shop in Grange Road, Frindsbury. The witnesses were Phyllis's brother Percy and her sister Violet.
They went to live at Council Cottages, Cantley, and then in 1933 they moved to Ipswich, firstly living in lodgings in Tacket Street in the town centre, and then in a rented house in Cavendish Street, the same street that I would live in almost exactly half a century later. Joe worked for Fisons on Cliff Road, who were constructing a new factory. They moved to 20 Fletcher Road on the new Gainsborough Estate in Ipswich, where their first child and only daughter was born. The factory was completed the following year, and they returned to Ely in 1935, where they would remain.
Joe and Phyllis lived at 25 Willow Walk off of Waterside, where my father and his three brothers were born - Joe and Phyl had five children in all. The house is now demolished. Joe Knott rarely spoke about his family in Kent, and his children were told almost nothing about them, although they did on occasion in the 1940s receive visits from his sister Gladys and his brother William. Joe was 31 when the Second World War broke out. He spent the War as a motorcycle dispatch rider, mostly in Italy. After he returned to Ely, the family moved to a new council house at 37 Chief's Street in 1947. They lived there for the rest of their lives. In the 1940s and 1950s Joe bred racing pigeons and canaries.
Joe's parents, my great-grandparents, both died in the early 1950s. William Knott died on 27th July 1951 of exhaustion and internal haemorrhage. Mary Ann Knott died on 15th April 1952 of heart failure and senile decay. They both died at 143 Maidstone Road, Rochester, the home of their daughter Gladys Violet Allen, who notified both deaths. William and Mary Ann were buried in the same grave plot as William's parents, plot A192 in Strood Cemetery.
Joe worked for British Sugar until he retired in the early 1970s. For a while, Joe and Phyllis owned a caravan in Heacham, and enjoyed holidays on the Norfolk coast. He had a great pride in his garden at Chief's Street, spending hours tending his fruit and vegetables until he was well into his eighties. I would regularly visit them at Chief's Street in the late 1970s and 1980s, and Joe was aways keen to show me around his garden. I am pleased that I have a photograph, taken in 1987, of him doing this. I particularly remember his gooseberry bushes - he would take great delight in watching his grandchildren trying to eat the sour fruit! Joe's children were near at hand, one son living a few streets away and all the others within 15 miles or so. His wife Phyllis's brother and sister also lived nearby. Joe is still remembered for his fondness for the horses, and his friendships with prominent sportsmen. He never went back to Kent. He outlived my other grandparents, lived to hold my son as a baby, and died in Ely in the Princess of Wales Hospital in 1996 at the age of 87.
AT A GLANCE: DETAILS FROM REGISTERS AND CENSUS DATA
My great-great-grandparents George and Mary Ann Waters and their family
Birthplace 1881 census 1891 census 1901 census 1911 census married to
(date registered) age address age address age address age address date of marriage
Halstow, Kent (1849)
Upper Brents, Preston, Kent
Bryants Terrace, Strood, Kent
Old Park Road, Hitchin, Herts
One Bell, Common Lane, Dartford, Kent
George married Mary Ann Harrall at St Mary's church, Newington on 15th October 1871
(Harrall)
Higham, Kent (1850)
Mary Ann married George Waters at St Mary's church, Newington on 15th October 1871
Mary Anne (Mary)
Llanferres, Denbighshire (1872)
London Road, Strood, Kent
Provident Street, Stone, Kent
Mary Ann married William Knott at St Mary's church, Strood, Kent on the 3rd December 1892.
Beatrice Louisa
Gas Lane, Strood, Kent
Lancet House, Loose, Kent
Beatrice married John Charles Cox in the 3rd quarter of 1895, and may have married Charles Smith in 1902 or 1903
My great-grandparents William and Mary Ann Knott and their family
Birthplace 1901 census 1911 census
(date registered) age address age address date of marriage
Upchurch, Kent (1869)
William married Mary Ann Waters at St Mary's church, Strood, Kent on the 3rd December 1892.
(Waters)
Daisy Mary
Strood, Kent (1893)
One Bell, Common Lane, Wilmington, Kent
Daisy married Charles Marchant at St Michael's church, Wilmington, Kent on the 3rd April 1912.
Gladys Violet
Gladys married Frederick Allen at St Nicholas's church, Strood, Kent on 8th February 1919
Pansy Miriam
Pansy was dead by the time of the 1901 census
William George
I have not yet found a marriage or date for William. It was probably in the late 1920s.
Vincent Helgia
Dartford, Kent (1908)
Vincent married Phyllis Page at the Register Office, Ely, Cambridgeshire on 15th August 1932
Iris Alberta
Greenhithe, Kent (1910)
Iris married George Gower in Strood in 1931.
Ages are as shown on census.
(name) after name indicates different given name on some censuses.
(number) after street name indicates more than one household in that street.