Looking for a Stroud workhouse inmate

[Squirrel Nutkin]

Not a sausage! I feel completely stumped! I can find no trace of either of them in 1861 CR, though I think the 1871 one you found is probably George. The birth certificate says nothing except that Ann lives at the workhouse, the father is not named.

By 1880 George was married in India - that's when his first (I think) son was born.

There are so many Ann Stricklands on the CRs and none of them that I can see obviously fit in with Stroud. I have emailed Glos archives to see if they have any helpful workhouse records - I think they have some minutes of Board of Guardian meetings or something - but am not hopeful.

Any ideas? Would an illegitimate workhouse inmate have been baptised do you think? He certainly had his kids baptised in India.

[osprey]

Yes, very likely that he was baptised, if the mother was in the workhouse rather than just using the hospital there to give birth. The Creed registers record the denomination of the person being admitted. Guardians kept records of birth & baptisms as well.

I've had a look through the census of Stroud workhouse in 1861, neither of them there.

 

[AngelaR]

He was baptised in Stroud as William George Strickland son of Ann Strickland on 14 Jun 1855. The record is on FamilySearch RecordSearch.

There may be more information in the original image but it doesn't look as if the father was named.....

[Squirrel Nutkin]

Thanks Osprey and AngelaR. I am thinking that if neither of them were in the workhouse in 1861 Ann is likely to still have been alive, my thinking being that otherwise George would still be there. I suppose a relative might have taken pity on him - what do you think?

Do you know where George would have been baptised? Was there a chapel attached to the workhouse, or would it have been the local parish church?

[AngelaR]

As far as I'm aware, baptisms at that period would have taken place in the Parish Church - St Laurence. Unhelpfully, the familysearch entry just says Stroud 

You may be aware that the workhouse is now converted into private flats and calls itself 'Stone Manor'. I don't live very far away from it and certainly wouldn't want to live there. It's only in very favourable conditions that it doesn't look grim!
I'm not doing well finding George in the 1861 census, I have to say!

[osprey]

I don't think he's in the Stroud workhouse anyway. I went through all the pages and no-one who seemed to match.

  

[AngelaR]

The only Strickland I could find of the right sort of age was a George in Cheltenham, son of Richard. I would have suspected that he was actually the grandson and his mother had been the eldest daughter, except for the fact that the daughter Ann was aged 10 

The only other solution I can come up with is that Ann married and that he's with her and his step father under the new name......

[Squirrel Nutkin]

Frustrating, isn't it?! In later life George certainly used the name Strickland. I scoured the workhouse in 1861 CR too, but no matter how hard I try, none of the names will fit! I wonder whether the bit of census they were on got damaged? Or I suppose people must have slipped throught the net sometimes?

Do you think it is worth trying St Laurence to see if their records provide anything useful?

[AngelaR]

St Laurence will have the baptism, but I doubt if there will be any extra information beyond what family search has - 14 Jun 1855. In that set of records, there's only the one Strickland baptism.

I'm just about to go away on holiday, otherwise I'd check the St Laurence entry for you in my local library to see if there were any extra notes, but I shan't be able to for some weeks.

I would be surprised if Ann and George's stay in the workhouse was a very long one - I should imagine that Ann went in there to have the baby, as workhouses operated as general medical and support services for the poor. I think they just had to be somewhere else in 1861 but where is anyone's guess 

Did George's birth certificate give any more details about Ann, such as occupation?