Hi Trish and Linda
I am very grateful for your swift and thorough response and you have signposted a couple more queries that I hope to solve. In the meantime I have just received the 76 page report from Queensland and it has a real wealth of information in it - including details of Thomas Munns' second marriage to Harriet Frost which occurred at St Andrews' Church in Soham on 12 Sep 1847. There were five children to this marriage but only two survived infancy, including the Martha Mary that I was seeking. She was the second of that name the first died at about two months of age in 1849.
The handwritten GRO index does say 1260 it was mistranscribed, I enhanced it and then searched on the same index reference and came up with Thomas Pleasance. So we know they were married in 1863 in Q4 but there's is one of the few marriages that I have no record of in the parish register details that have been sent to me.
I am intrigued about Linda's postscript to Trish - how many people are there looking for this family? I now have solved the links with all the Taylors and Normans in Brixton and have them all arising from families in Soham and Isleham. I am happy to share what information that I have, but I am conscious that much of the stuff relating to the Munns family is in fact the work of someone else and so I shall not be publicly broadcasting the contents except to do look-ups if needed.
Back to 1891 in Bartley Street: Rutter Norman is the nephew of James Taylors' step-father William Norman - is that a step-cousin? William Taylor in 35 is James's brother; James is married to Martha Mary Munns and their eldest son William (who occupies 33 Bartley Street by 1906) is the father of Stanley William Taylor. I have the baptismal, marriage and other documentation for a large number of these people and the previous generations. Martha Mary signs with a mark the death certificate as informant and aunt of the deceased for my great-aunt Ellen Maud who stayed with Martha and James from 1905 and where she died of TB in 1906.
It is all fascinating stuff and it is a shame that Bartley Street no longer exists because I would liked to have obtained photographs of these houses together. I might ask the good folk of the Minet Library in Brixton if they have anything in their archive.
This is really important to me also because Brixton Hill was where my Cambridgeshire and Wiltshire families got together - without Brixton Hill I would not be here! My parents moved us to the area in 1956 and I have a large number of early memories from around the district, including my first school. My uncle was a postman from the late 40s until the 70s operating out of the sorting office that was close to the end of Bartley Street and covering a beat of Brixton Hill and Tulse Hill. My great grandfather, besides marrying at St Saviours from 39 Bartley Street, first came to London from Wiltshire as a drover with a herd of cattle for Smithfield. He got a job with the wonderfully named Balls brothers Omnibus company as the 'cock horse' man for the buses on Brixton Hill ( he had the spare or cock horse to hitch to the two already hitched to the bus to get them up Brixton Hill), the remnants of their livery stable is still visible; he later became a roundsman with a milk delivery company and that, according to family lore, is where he met Lucy Pleasance who was in service in a house in St saviours Road (adjacent to Bartley Street). So, if I can help anyone with all this then I shall, in the meantime, thanks very much for the efforts that you have gone to.
Regards
John
