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Hi Rob

To cut a long story shorter....

Timeline

16 July 1905 - Born, birth name and place of birth unknown
13 Oct 1906 - Wheatsheaf pub, Rainford, Lancs., woman travelling with two men (reported to be coopers by trade) and two children, sold one of the children for 4s to Tom Thompson, miner of Rainford. Other child believed to be male. My grandmother was told she had a brother.
18 Dec 1906 - First newspaper reports appeared detailing events of 13 Oct, asking to find a new home for the child.Story was initially detailed at the Dec 1906 AGM of the St Helens branch of the NSPCC. Newspapers then ran the story and interviewed Tom Thompson's mother who was living with her son.
9 March 1907 - Tom Thompson appears in Ormskirk Magistrates Court for being drunk in charge of a child. 'Alice' is removed from the Thompsons by the NSPCC.
5 May 1907 (recent find) - 'Alice' baptised in Shamley Green Surrey by adoptive parents as Eva Alice Taylor. Parish register recorded her DOB as *6* July 1905.
1911 Census - With adoptive parents in Cricklewood London, aged 6, birthplace - Cricklewood and counted as a child to the marriage.
1930 - Eva Alice married, gave age as 2 years younger and adoptive father's name as father.

Research - see article that I had published Family Tree Magazine August 2010, also details events -

http://s16.postimg.org/o9c31pgt1/page1.jpg

http://s23.postimg.org/ii0kygbu3/page2.jpg

http://s14.postimg.org/5kelple69/page3.jpg

http://s18.postimg.org/m3swerzvd/page4.jpg

Have also tried Prescot Guardian Minutes.

Newspapers

Have since found 33 instances of the newspaper story reported in the UK, US, Wales and Australia.

Tom Thompson

Died 1933 in Billinge Hospital Lancs. He had one daughter, Ellen, born 1908. Married Tom Bradshaw 1928 in Orrell, Lancs. Had 3 children - Ellen 1929, Doreen 1933, Clifford 1936.
 

Hi Rob

Thanks for the tip. I am stuck without a name - the organization connected to the case appears not to have kept my grandmother's adoption file. If not for newspapers, I would even have a date.

I can only imagine what she thought. I think she felt lucky that she had found a relatively stable new life in London. She found out she was adopted when she was 17. It must have been a head spinner, and then add the circumstances, I can only imagine how she must have felt.

Later in life she was torn between wanting to know who she really was, but also worried what she might find. She had a brother, that's all she was told beside the scant details of her parents.

Thanks for your interest.

I don't know my grandmother's birth name or where born. She was adopted in 1907. She was told snippets of the story about her parents - no names. Just that at the time they gave her up they were in the area of Rainford/St Helens. I don't have names, only dates and the temporary name of Alice given to her by her first foster parents. She was given a new name by second and final foster parents. Her baptism (1907), done in her adoptive mother's birth parish in Surrey (with new name) gives birth date as 6 July 1905.

It would appear that the parents were visiting Thatto Heath in October 1906, before continuing on to Southport. The husband many have been a cooper. They were described as gypsies, but I don't know if this was just a generalized term because of their no fixed abode status, or whether they were gypsies by birth.