Visitors to England

[PERKINS]

Looking for Gaston Girard who may have been in London sometime after 1885 working for the Shoe Wire Grip Company, married in 1898.  1901 census in Leicester shows him coming from Canada.

[jorose]

Can't spot him at all on the 1891 census, and on www.historicaldirectories.org he's in 1903, 1906 and 1910 directories for Northamptonshire, but not on any of the 1890s directories for London, where he married.

Do you have the marriage certificate? If you want to trace him back it would give you several things of use - particularly his father's name and occupation, and where the marriage was held - interesting to see if he's Catholic, as the French-Canadian last name would suggest, even more interesting if he's not (although he may just have switched to whichever church his wife's family frequented).

Incidentally if you search for 'Shoe Wire Grip' on the HD site, you find a P. Roche in Leicester about 1899 (Percy W Roche on the 1901 census, 24, Shoe Machine Agent) and an E. A. Mahon in Kettering in 1898, not found in 1901.  There also appear to be offices in London about the same time, which might explain the marriage, the 1901 presence in Leicester and the later directory entries in Northamptonshire.

[PERKINS]

Thank you for your help, further to the story he later became a Professor of Languages, and was found in Cairo 1914 - 1915 but was reportedly killed in Paris in 1916 in a road traffic accident!  Have some lovely photo's of him in 1909 and 1914.  Once again thank you.