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[KGarrad]

Rosie, is there anything for Kingston like I found once in Southampton City Library, called: Kelly, Directory of Southampton, 1850-1974? He was there yearly from 1881 onward.

The University of Leicester, Special Collections, has a whole host of Trade Directories
Kelley's and others!
http://specialcollections.le.ac.uk/cdm/landingpage/collection/p16445coll4

[ShaunJ]

Just wondered if you'd seen the record of Israel Wickens' very brief time as a policeman in Gloucestershire in 1859 https://goo.gl/jS9kbK

[boscoe]

Unbelievable. What a find! And the details of someone unknown even to my father, now long deceased and who would have been fascinated. I really thank you.
Israel's height is my height when young, and well above all his descendants. My recent children's birthday gift of a DNA test noted Neanderthal #5, meaning height of 1 inch or above normal, and I figured it came from my mother. Both parents being British born and small. Maybe not.
Shaun: Do you think "dismissed" means he was fired for poor quality work? He seems to have thrived as a train guard for the London &SW, respected enough to represent them in two newspaper cited criminal accounts as a witness. And, he got my grandfather a job with them before his emigration to Canada.

[ShaunJ]

He was dismissed from the police within 4 days of joining so something must have gone wrong very quickly.

[boscoe]

You're right. And, I wonder if my assumption is also right. Going down the list quickly I saw no one under age 21, none. Israel lied about his age. He was 17, born in 1841. They must have found out. Also, they paid him for those days of work. Among those also leaving are citations of drunkenness, refusal to work nights, death, etc. some with citations of no pay. Israel is simply dismissed, meaning paid for those days of work.
I looked up Gloucestershire and there are many towns there. Unfortunately the record does not say where Israel worked. The place is so foreign to my genealogy.
So he must have boarded a train afterwards that went to London. He lived near Waterloo Station in 1861 and married a girl living on Waterloo Road 5 years later at St. Johns across the street from Waterloo. I do appreciate your finding, Shaun. It's a belly laugh.

[boscoe]

Well, I did find a forgotten connection, Israel's brother, the last born, #11 Henry,  for some unknown reason was  born in Hempsted, Glouc. in 1853. His mother was b. in Oxfordshire 1809 and m. in Woolhampton, Berk., 1832,  living for decades across from Aldermaston manor where the father Joseph was the gardener. They left in the 1860s for Hant 1871 and Surrey 1881, 1891, dying there.
Who or what took them to Glouc.? There's no way to see residents from 1852-1860, is there? The idea being that before venturing to Haunts 1871 and after 1861 Berk they went to Glouc.

[ShaunJ]

Here's a mention of Joseph Wickens, gardener at Newark House, in the Gloucester Journal of 15 January 1853.

There's a Newark House at Hempsted, Gloucester.

[boscoe]

You're remarkable, Shaun. Decades ago in Westminster when I read the Censuses of 1851 and 1861 they had Joseph at Aldermaston, but in 61 he was an undergardener. I wrote in my genealogy that "life must have slowed down for Joseph, now age 55." Not until the computer age did it reveal where they went afterward. But, you show that he had left earlier. So, it looks like he quit Aldermaston about 1852, was offered a good job at Hampsted, and for some reason left there and returned to Aldermaston. By the way, Henry was a 7-year-old school boy. I'm really impressed that both my mother and father's predecessors went to school years before the school reforms. I have a Derbyshire grd.mother in the 1840s who obviously could read and write. And Joseph's son, Israel, clearly had read the classics. His eldest son's middle name was Horace, probably the only one in England! But that name, for the most difficult person ever to follow, was the key to finding him after decades of looking. He as sick 1904 and died 1906 in South Africa.

[boscoe]

He's a copy of what I have found recently related to your 1853 ad sent to Gloucestershire.
 Reading Wikipedia, it become clear why Joseph went there. [The typed manuscript in Reading Library that I read years ago had many errors, based on the writer's memory]. Aldermaston changed hands. The new owner's middle name is Higford. Joseph went to Hempstead to help let [rent] 218 acres after a Higford died. He must have gained employment at Newark there and then. He was forced back to Aldermaston in 1860-61 when Newark was let for a school. Now an undergardener, 1861, sometime afterward they moved to Hants, he as a laborer, 1871, and to Surrey, again as a gardener, 1881, 1891, before dying there.
I still hope to find out who this Richard  Phillipps is, cited in the 1853 ad.
Many thanks to all for helping me fill in the spaces. Especially, you, Shaun.