St Catherines House?

[Lemontree]

Hello,

I am looking for some help again, I know that civil registration started in 1837.

In 1873 the civil registration moved to Somerset House, which also housed Navel Offices and the Inland revenue.

Where was civil registration housed before? Was it in St Catherines House and if so where was St Catherines House and what other offices were housed in the same building?

I have tryed searching on the internet by using search engines - but with no luck!

hoping someone might know the answer

Lemon

[JAP]

Hello Lemontree,

Perhaps an email to the current location of the records - the Family Records Centre - with your request might elicit the answer, or at least point you in the right direction to get it.

Contact details are at:
http://www.familyrecords.gov.uk/frc/contact.htm

JAP

[trish251]

From something I saw on the net, I thought that the Family Records Centre, is simply a renamed St Catherine's House - but I may be completely wrong.
I am interested in the definitive answer - hence this post will ensure I get notified.

Trish

[Lemontree]

Hello,

Thanks for your suggestion, I have emailed and asked if they can let me know where I can find a history of St Catherines House between 1850-1895 and if indeed the Indexes are named after the building in which they were at one time kept.

I will await the reply and let you know.

Lemon

[Greenonions]

Hi Lemon,
I visited St Catherines House about 12 years ago.
It housed the family records after Somerset House and before the current family records centre.
It was on the corner of Aldwych and Kingsway.
If it was named after an earlier building because of its use I don`t know.

Good luck
Bob

[Little Nell]

According to the history of Somerset House, the Registrar General was based at Somerset House from the beginning of civil registration i.e. from 1837.  The GRO moved out in 1970 and took up residence at St. Catherine's House at Aldwych/Kingsway. 

In 1997, they moved to the Family Records Centre in Myddleton Street in Islington.  At the same time, the census microfilms were made available at the same site, having previously been housed in the old census search room (rather cramped I believe) in Chancery Lane.  Microfilms of wills also became avaialable there.  This was the first time, I believe, that the GRO indexes and the census records were available in the same place.

The indexes became known as the St. Catherine's House indexes, simply because of their location.  Before 1970, everyone knew them as the Somerset House indexes.  As far as I know, St Catherine's House did not feature in the 19th century history of the GRO.

There is a book published by HMSO entitled: People count; a history of the General Register Office by M Nissel, but I think that may just be a history of the institution rather than the location.

I don't know when Aldwych and Kingsway came into existence, but they do not show on maps from the 19th century.  There was a St. Catherine's Street roughly in that location and that may be the reason for the name of the building that the GRO came to occupy.

Nell

[Meliora]

Just as a point of interest, when I first started researching, the census films were housed in a medium sized room in Portugal St., a couple of minutes walk up Kingsway from St Catharine's House on the corner of Aldwych.    This room had about 8 film readers & we had to sit & wait for one to become free.  We did not select the films ourselves as you can in the new FRC but had to order them over a counter & wait for the assistant to get them. This was all a very simple, easy going set-up when you compare it to the FRC in Myddleton St. where they now have literally hundreds of film readers.  From Portugal St. the censuses were moved into a huge gothic building in Chancery Lane were we all beveared away like moles in the cellars, we did not do any copying of anything we found ourselves but had to wait for an assistant to do it for us.  When the St Cath's indexes, censuses & will were  moved to the new FRC, it was like being in a new world where we could move from one area of search to another without having to go off to another building.   For me it was like coming home to my roots as my 3 X greatgrandmother died in Myddlton St. in 1860.

Meliora

[Lemontree]

Hello,

Thank -you everyone for your assistance.

 Little Nell, thanks I am starting to get somewhere, I have been trawling online maps of London and have located both Somerset House and Catherine Street.

I am fishing about because there is a family rumor - that a female ancestor used to collect "money" once a fortnight from St Catherines House between 1851 ish and 1892 (she died in 1892 and the money stopped)

If Catherine House didn't exist then, could it have been Somerset House where the money was being collected, which would make more sense - as it housed the Navy office and perhaps it was a pension. ( I dont know if I am barking up the wrong tree)

Thing is I dont know anything about her husband - I dont know if he was in the Navy, all I have is his name Henry Charles Isaac Neale which I have from his sons marriage certificate. Henry is given as deceased and occupation a Gentleman.

Henry, I cannot find on the 1851 census and by 1861 his wife is a widow - or so she claims? Can't even find a marrige certificate for Henry and Caroline

I am trying to do as much homework as I can before I make a trip to National Archives to dig some more!

Thanks again to everyone who has read or responded to this query it has been very helpful.

Lemon

[Greenonions]

Hi Lemon
Found Caroline Neale in the 1871 census

Trinity Alms houses, Mile end road
Caroline Neale,widow, 67, Dartmouth, Devon

Many other people in the Alms house are master mariners or ships masters. Would seem to confirm Henry`s naval carreer.

Perhaps a marriage in Devon

Plymouth: September 1847, volume 9, page 394

Bob