Ask the Expert - the mystery of Reginald

Our expert Stephen Rigden, pictured right, answers your questions.

From Ray Derricott: ‘My late father-in-law was born on 5 August 1907 in Islington. His mother was a domestic servant serving in a house in Islington. The father is not named on the birth certificate. His mother Florence Grace Edwin does not appear on the 1911 census and neither does my father-in law, Reginald Frederick Edwin. I have tried to find about his early life but to no avail.

I know he sailed to Canada in 1929 and returned in 1931. I have his TA military record and his marriage and death certificates. But what happened to him between 1907 and 1929? I would appreciate your help.’

Steve says: ‘In my experience, the vast majority of individuals resident in the areas covered by the 1911 census are findable. In this case, the solution is to consider the background and circumstances: a domestic servant would be unlikely to be able to care for her illegitimate child while remaining in service. Therefore, she would need to find a carer for her child. Moreover, the details of servants resident in their employers’ households are perhaps less likely to be recorded accurately and in full detail: the household form would have been filled in not by them but by their employer.

In this instance, therefore, I searched the 1911 census for a Florence living in the district of the birth and found one candidate: a Florence Edwin living as a general servant with a family named Hopkins at 137 Petherton Road, Highbury, aged 32, single and born in Huntingdon. Checking the birth index, there is a Florence Grace Edwin born in June quarter 1878 in Huntingdon registration district, which lends further support to this being the correct individual. I then searched for her young child living elsewhere and found a Reggie Edwin, aged 3, born in Highbury and boarding at 4 Victoria Terrace, Huntingdon with a family named Marriott.

I am confident that these two individuals are the ones you seek, even though they are not residing in the same household and their names are not given in full. In answer to your question, therefore, I suspect that Reginald spent his early years not in north London but in rural Huntingdon, where his mother was born and doubtless had family and friends. However, it is unlikely to prove possible to find out much more information about his formative years, although doubtless the 1921 census, due to be released in 2022, will place him somewhere in the country.’

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3 Responses to “Ask the Expert - the mystery of Reginald”

1. Susan Latter says:

   24 December 2010 at 5:00 pm

   The bringing up of a servant’s child by another member of the family must be a relatively frequent occurence. My greatgrandmother, Harriet Ashdown, was one of six sisters who all but one entered service. The fourth daughter, Bertha, had a child in 1873. Bertha married the butler in the household for whom she was working two months before the birth of her daughter. It is his name that is given on the birth certificate. However, the three characters in this tale did not subsequently live together and the daughter was brought up by her youngest aunt who did not go into service. I suspect that the butler was not the true father and that a remittance was paid to the aunt to ensure the child was brought up in reasonable circumstances. Your thoughts?

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2. David Allen says:

   23 February 2011 at 6:54 pm

   I have come across a number of instances in researches into my own family of illegitimate children being brought up by their grandparents as if they were their natural parents (indeed, I thought my own cousin was my “uncle” for many years). Whether this subtefuge would be admitted on the census is questionable, but it can cause quite a bit of confusion until you twig that this is what has happened.

   Obviously this is not the case here, but it might help other researchers for whom this is the key to understanding such a conundrum.

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   27 July 2011 at 12:42 am

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