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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: T1na.A on Wednesday 05 June 19 19:06 BST (UK)
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I'm back after a long break from family history. Thought I'd make a start with some Ancestry hints. The first one I come across and I'm already looking for some advice from you good people.
John Conboy (row 5) is shown as 'prisoner' on the 1861 Census along with another 4 people but the location does not appear to be a prison. However the first two names are a police constable and a police sergeant, who are shown as 'lodgers'. Two of the prisoners appear to be prostitutes.
Is it likely the policemen were holding these 5 prisoners in the policemen's own home and it was just coincidental that the enumerator happened to call at the exact same time or had the policemen come to arrest the 5 but had to be included in the Census just because they were in the building? If it were the latter case, I would have expected to see the police shown as 'visitors'. I cannot see any mention of any other police on the page before so assume it was not a Police Station?
I know that any replies will probably be speculative but I would be interested in hearing other views as it's not something I've come across before. Thank you in anticipation.
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There are 3 policeman on the previous page, all shown as lodgers as well!
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In the village where I live, there was a problem with labourers working on the construction of a dam on the mountain above, who came down into the village on Friday nights to get roaring drunk and then start fighting. Further difficulties arose because when arrested, there was nowhere to put the miscreants. Consequently a mini-jail was built in the garden of the police house where those arrested for being drunk and disorderly were shut up for the night to cool off. I am wondering if this is a similar situation - that the offenders weren't actually in the police house itself, but in a lock-up in the garden.
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Census-taking was not about who happened to be at an address when the enumerator called.
The enumerator delivered household returns days in advance of the appointed date, with instructions to householders to include persons who spent the relevant night at the address, and returned to collect the completed forms in the days following.
This does look like a local mini-clink (perhaps of a makeshift nature).
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There's a description here of a Victorian police station near Hyde Park https://www.victorianlondon.org/police/hydeparkstation.htm
The Regents Park one on the census could have had a similar set up. And there appears to have been, until recently, a police station at 60 Albany Street, maybe just a coincidence or the building numbers have changed over time.
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I think it may have been the bridewell, where those arrested in the evening are held overnight before coming in front of the magistrate in the morning.
Mike
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1864 map - Police station on Albany Street
http://london1864.com/stanford14.htm
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Thank you all for your informative replies.
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And there appears to have been, until recently, a police station at 60 Albany Street, maybe just a coincidence or the building numbers have changed over time.
Shown as No. 104 on this 1959-62 map https://www.old-maps.co.uk/#/Map/528834/182628/13/100765 also on the Town Plan at https://maps.nls.uk/view/101201523#zoom=6&lat=11056&lon=2011&layers=BT
Stan
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Prisoners can wind up in private houses. When we were Venezuela, the National Guard captured a Czechoslovakian youth carrying a US refugee document. He was held for several weeks in the one-cell village lock-up but he spent a lot of time at our house under armed guard because, as the only Americans in town [indeed the only foreigners], we were required to feed him three times a day.
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I've come across something like this in 19thC, near Liverpool , I think. Policeman & family + prisoners, several of whom were prostitutes. Address may have been Bridewell.
Keep in mind that census night was usually Sunday. If local bobby arrested some miscreants on Saturday night he may have had to take charge of them until they were taken to court on Monday.
Interesting story, Errato.
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Not on thread topic but I like FindMyPast's transcription of the occupations of Ann Hinge & Margaret Mead, plasterer!
Cheers
Guy
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There used to be a Police House in many villages, like in tv series "Heartbeat".