13 Peak Hill, Sydenham S6 - England 1911 census

[monkstown]

I feel I have lost many of my detective skills over recent years ... I would like to find who was living at 13 Peak Hill, Sydenham S6 at the time of the 1911 census to see if the (war)poet W M Letts might have been staying with a relative when her qualification in Medical Electricity came through. Is it possible to search UK census by address - it's very easy to do on the Irish census but I'm having trouble navigating the GB one.    The Letts dynasty had been living in the Sydenham area previously.

Many thanks

[tootrock]

The following are at that address in the 1911 Census:

Alexander William Watson-Smyth, Edith Jessie Watson-Smyth, Cyril Flemming.

Martin

[clk]

Hi monkstown,

Images sourced from Ancestry

Regards
Chris

[tootrock]

A Winifred Letts, born 1882 in Manchester, was living in Dublin at the time of the 1911 Census.

Martin

[monkstown]

Thank you so much, Tootrock and CLK - bang goes my LETTS family connection so.....

[monkstown]

Just now, tootrock said:

A Winifred Letts, born 1882 in Manchester, was living in Dublin at the time of the 1911 Census.

Martin

Yes, indeed but when she qualified in Medical Electricity in 1917 as part of her work as a masseuse, she gave that Peak Hill address. I'm trying to find whether she was working in a hospital locally/lodging for the duration of her course etc.   I didn't know of any way of checking that address nearer to 1917?

[seaJane]

Where was the course operated from, monkstown? The place might have an archive or a roll of honour, or some such.

(I tried the Royal College of Nursing archive but no luck, and the Dictionary of Irish Biography has a bare mention of her war service in its entry for her.)

[monkstown]

Thanks seaJane - she trained under Arabella Jackson Hogg in the Dublin School of Massage. In 1918, a clubroom was opened for the ISTM  in Dublin at 12 Hume Street (a private hospital in the 1911 census and in my lifetime, a skin and cancer hospital - now closed - up to the early 2000s) but the available records here only date back to 1920. 

 

Edited 24 November , 2021 by monkstown

[RaySearching]

Don't know whether this helps

 Between the   25.8.15 - 30.6.16 Winifred was working at the  2nd. Western Gen: Hosp. Manchester

SOURCE

Ray

[monkstown]

Thanks Ray - yes, I have that - it's really to know why she gave that address in the Register for Med. Electricity (qualified Nov 1917, elected to ISTM Feb 1918) - but maybe she was just staying there while doing the written exam?

Edited 24 November , 2021 by monkstown

[KizmeRD]

Could be that the Rev. Smyth was known to Winifred’s father? (also a Cleric).

In any case, there was a lodger at the time that the Census was conducted - Cyril Fleming (Capt ASC during WW1).
Cyril married in 1911 so I presume that he would have moved out, leaving a room free for another lodger to move in (Winifred). Presume also that the Rev was still taking in lodgers in 1917 (i.e. Winifred - whose permanent address was Blackrock, Co. Dublin). 

MB

PS Winifred and her mother moved to Blackrock after Rev. Letts died.

Edited 26 November , 2021 by KizmeRD

[monkstown]

Thanks KizmeRD - yes she may have been lodging there/staying with friends/who knows!   She had been living in Ireland pretty much fulltime from1898 when she moved here to attend Alexandra College, Dublin and, as you say, after her father's death, her mother and sister moved here.

 

I'm still digging here  to work out what she was up to (apart from writing poetry) ....

Happy Christmas to all

[KizmeRD]

On 23/12/2021 at 12:59, monkstown said:

I'm still digging here  to work out what she was up to (apart from writing poetry) ....

Sorry, as far as I’m aware, she started the war as a VAD (special) nurse - initially at the Irish War Hospital Supply Depot, then at the Western General, Manchester before training and qualifying in 1917 as a STM masseuse with the Almeric Paget Military Massage Corps, and ending her wartime service with a posting to the Northern Command Depot (Alnwick Camp).

MB

 

 

Edited 27 December , 2021 by KizmeRD

[monkstown]

Thanks - I'm interested in why you think she started at the IWHSD? And I haven't been able to trace dates for her time in Alnwick Camp so if you have any leads on those dates, I would be most grateful. 

Happy New Year to all

[KizmeRD]

You probably know more than me how frustrating it is that someone who emanated from the family of the famous Letts Diaries firm didn’t appear to keep one herself (at least not published). We know from her Red Cross record that she enrolled in June 1915 ‘Dublin Co. Special’ but wasn’t posted to Manchester until end of August 1915 - so she would have been required to work somewhere local during that period. If not at the busy Hospital Supply Depot, then at one of the other Red Cross facilities in Dublin. We also know that she finished her VAD service at the 2nd Western General Hospital in Manchester at the end of June 1916 after which she would probably have taken a short period of leave before beginning training to be a Masseuse at the A. Hogg School of Massage in Dublin. She would then have had to travel to London to sit the examination of the Society of Trained Masseuses together with her medical electricity qualification (completed in Nov. 1917). Most probably she would then have enrolled directly into the Almeric Paget Military Massage Corp and got posted to Alnwick Camp (Northern Command Depot). At the time if the Armistice in 1918 she appears to have returned to Dublin and was working at a Military Orthopaedic Hospital in Blackrock (All the time writing and publishing some remarkably accomplished war poetry).

MB

[monkstown]

Thanks - she did indeed keep diaries in her later years, and even included reference to me in one of them at least!

[monkstown]

From what I can see on the 1921 Census - at a distance, I admit - 13 Peak Hill is not listed -it goes from House No. 12 to 14, unless 13 is one of the 'named' houses ....

[KizmeRD]

The road has been redeveloped (all the odd numbers on the north side are now just three story blocks of maisonettes).

MB

 

[monkstown]

Thanks but if No 13 was given as her address in 1917, I had hoped No 13 would still be listed in 1921 Census...

[IPT]

According to the electoral register, Henry Stephen Finch and Anna Finch were there in 1920 and 1921.  Charles Arthur Williams lived there in 1914 and 1915.

[monkstown]

Ah IPT - I think you may have the answer, thanks so much. Winifred's older sister was married to a Charles Arthur Williams!

 

I presume from the dates given that there wasn't an electoral register taken between 1915 and 1920? 

[BarbaraG]

Assume you will have Winifred's V.A.D. record which gives her her address at Blackrock, Co. Dublin in June 1915.

 

[monkstown]

Yes thank you Barbara, I have those  - is the Red Cross site working again? I haven't been able to look at the VAD cards themselves in months and the web person said there was a major fault in the  site .

W M Letts is also listed in the Co Dublin 50 VAD but I haven't ever seen any card for that - it was set up ‘on May 26^th, 1916, with a membership of 30, to assist in the working of the Blackrock Branch of the Irish War Hospital Supply Depot’. I presume she joined on her return from Manchester. Maybe it was at this stage that she was getting her Masseuse training and qualification but I haven't been able to find her primary massage qualification - she is in the June 1917 Register of Members and it shows both her addresses - her permanent address in Blackrock and the Peak Hill address. She qualified in Medical Electricity in Nov 1917.  I wondered was she working in a hospital while training or was it a full-time training programme, and did she have to go to London to sit her exam? ISTM exams had been held in Dublin for a number of years at that stage.