Sproston -Langton-Prescott families of London & Australia

[JaneyCanuck]

I think Lavinia Westgate is in the 1881 census as Elvina Westgate in Great Yarmouth, aged 17. You may have the same thoughts as me ...

In Row 29, in the household of a married pipemaker with no wife present and a 27-yr-old dressmaker daughter, Elvina is one of six young unmarried women aged 17 to 25 described as lodgers, with "no occupation". Either they were very well off young women who were all just lodging away from home for some reason, or ...

There are several young unmarried women lodging next door as well, but they are all assigned occupations (charwoman, factory hand). There is a 25-yr-old woman with no occupation with a fisherman lodger, and another 29-yr-old married woman head of household with no occupation (her husband could have been on vessels, but ordinarily she would be described as wife in that case) and an unmarried young woman lodger with no occupation. There are also fishermen and fish hawkers in many of the neighbouring households. And a pair of matchmakers, father and son, which I find rather ... odd. Oh yikes, I get it: they actually made the things you use to start fires with!

I'm thinking it's a bit of a poor/red light district.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/77890412@N08/sets/72157629552952444/detail/?page=10
"This is Great Yarmouth Row 29 which has had the names Half Moon Row, Kings Head North or Queens Head North Row and Davy the Watchmaker's Row. It runs just north of The Market Tavern which was originally The Kings Head, the pub is on the right hand side in this picture at the row's SE corner. I think The Half Moon was a pub on the north side of the row. ..."

There's a drawing of Row 29 here (forgive me, I just get fascinated!):
http://www.ourgreatyarmouth.org.uk/page_id__464_path__0p44p48p.aspx
and a modern photo here:
http://urbanrowhouse.wordpress.com/tag/row-houses-in-england/

The Stanley household was at no. 6, Row 21 (George Street) in 1891.


... And you missed James Sproston in 1881 in your searching.

He is in Great Yarmouth: James SPROLSTON (you have to use wildcard searching -- or, as I did here since I knew where I was looking, and wasn't sure what surname he might be using: just search by given name and date range/place of birth only).

Age given as 35, born in London, Middlesex, fish merchant. He is a boarder in a lodging house where the other male boarders are military, and the neighbours are other military lodgers, sailors, skilled tradespeople, etc.

[Smokey807]

GREAT WORK EVERYONE !!!

What a tangled web it was but now we see that Archibald and Eva were siblings; their father was James Sproston who was the brother of George Sproston who took James's Sproston's children under his wing in Tunbridge Wells when James died in 1900. This of course means that the newspaper report of the air crash which stated that George was Archibalds father was incorrect(,which led to a merry chase down the wrong hole).

Thanks to your collective hard work and perseverance and my interjections and theories we got it figured out !!

Now my next step is to see how we get from Eva Sproston in 1901 census Tunbridge Wells living as the niece of George Sproston; to her as Mrs Langton (married in England or Austalia- England I would think) who had son (eldest son Arthur Langton) ;to a Mrs Eva Prescott in Adelaide,Australia the wife of Mr Prescott the master at St Peter's College, Adelaide and how/when her son Arthur ended up in Adelaide and working for the British General Electric Co. as an appliance salesman (was he born in Australia or England?).

And what I found interesting in this saga ,but probably will never learn more about, is why Eva Prescott was being blackmailed ; how her diary ended up in a suitcase of bones left on a London bus; who the blackmailer was and what became of her; and what was the final outcome of the investigation into the mystery by Scotland Yard? I think I shall contact Scotland Yard to see if they still have a file on this case and see what the outcome was for starters. Still waiting for a reply from St Peter's College in Adelaide re Mr and Mrs Prescott.

If any of you find out anything pertaining to the Eva segment of this tale please let me know so we don't duplicate our efforts. While Im checking with Scotland Yard and the College and the libraries in London and Adelaide perhaps someone could look for marriage records pertaining to Eva and a birth or baptism record for her children. I will post what I find out so you get the full storey.

To answer your question about my interest in this storey- I am not related to any of these people and so have no family connection or information about the family other that what has been found by research. Im a researcher and writer or articles for my website about the history of people etc connected to Tunbridge Wells only. Three generations of my family are from Tunbridge Wells which is why I research that town. Sometimes my inquiries establish a link between my family and the person I am researching who initially appears to have no connection. Its surprising what one finds out through research. I make no money from my ( and your) efforts. The work is all done for enjoyment and knowledge and the benefit of others interested in the history of Tunbridge Wells and all information gathered is offered free to anyone interested. The local library and the museum keep copies of the articles on my website as do other interested parties such as the Civic Society and the Tunbridge Wells Family History Society of which I am a member.When the names of contributors to the research are known I give them credit in any article written for assisting in the research. If you would like your name mentioned in the proposed Sproston article send me a personal message with the name.

[Smokey807]

I found three very interesting articles pertaining to the Prescott family , Mrs Eva Prescott, the blackmail case ; and the suitcase of bones. They are all from the Trove digitised website which we have found articles in before, so it was obviously a long and well reported case.All of the articles are from 1929 and all in The Register News Pictorial. The first is dated Nov. 12,1929 and is found at http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/53434946

The second and third are both in the same publication dated Nov 19th,1929. The first is on page 2 and the second on page 7. The source is http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article 53438446 .

It gives details about who the blackmail gang was and what became of them and some details as to their attempts ( successful I might add) to blackmail Mrs Eva Prescott and also the following information that might be useful in finding out more about the Prescott family.

1) Says Mrs Prescott is about age 45. (This would make her born abt 1884)

2) That he husband "IS SAID TO BE master of St Peters College ( this is contradicted later when the master of the college was contacted who said he new Mrs Prescotts husband and that her husband had been educated at Rugby)

3) Said she arrived in London from Australia June 1929 and holidayed at Yarkhill, Herfordshire. (see reference below to her husband being from Herfordshire)

4) The suitcase in addition bones and womens clothes contained the diary of Mrs Prescott and " important documents containing intimate family details". One has to wonder what secrets these documents held as Mrs Prescott and her son Arhur seem to be very secretive and ended up paying money to the gang to prevent it getting out or being used against them.

5) Mrs Prescott was in Yakhill, Herts "with the children" when the police found the suitcase. So she had children other than son Arthur.

6)She planned on returning to Australia in March (presumably March 1920)

7) Refers to a son of hers called John but I expect this should have been Arthur

Said the gang extorted 200 pounds from her "before the birth of a child" and that the gang had been blackmailing her for 10 years ( so that would make the start of it 1919)

9) She paid  another 300 pounds to the gang "but found out later my husband was not in Cape Town". I wonder why she didn't know where her husband was.

10) Says she left England for Australia after these blackmail's but the gang followed her. Was she escaping to Australia to get away from the blackmail or what was the real reason?  Rather strange!

11) The article with details about the gang says  Josephine O"Dare the head of the gang was from Withington, Herforshire.The Police said Josephine "is a member of a Hertforshire family living close to the Prescotts and would have known Mrs Prescott since childhood. Josephine was an assumed name and was born as Teresa Agnes Syrne, the daughter of a farm labourer and she was age 18 when she moved to London in 1921. So it sounds like Mrs Prescotts husband was from a Hertfordshire family of Prescotts.

I contacted Scotland Yard. Waiing for their reply.I will now check to see if I can find a census record for Teresa Syrne and perhaps from that I might find a Prescott family that connects to this storey.

[Smokey807]

Corrections; Im all thumbs today. Item 5 should be Yarkhill not Yakhill. Item 6 should be March 1930 not 1920.

[Smokey807]

To SUZARD. Regarding your reply #3 you refer to a long report in The Telegraoh Feb 23,1926 . I cant find this available without purchase on the internet. Can you send me a copy of the complete article or at least answer the following question. I am aware that Archibald John Sproston died "intestate" which I took to mean he had no will and therefore I have not ordered a will. However as pointed out in other replies there is a report in a Trove article, which I have a copy of, that Mr Langtons (Eva Prescott's son Arthur) has a claim regarding a "small but worthwhile annuity".

Does the article in The Telegraph give any mention of this annuity to Arthur Langton and if so what does it say about it. I don't quite understand this annuity for if Archibald had no will specifying this annuity to Arthur what is the basis for his claim?

Any clarification would be appreciated.

[JaneyCanuck]

It was determined that Maria, Archibald's wife, died before him.
Archibald, as the spouse of an intestate person, inherited her estate, if any, before he died.
Maria's heirs had no claim on her estate because it went to Archibald, and they had no claim on her estate as the heir of Archibald, i.e. on his estate (which was probably the real issue), because she predeceased him.
Archibald died intestate, i.e. without leaving a will.

The law determines who inherits an intestate person's estate -- it specifies what degree of relationship entitles a family member to what share of the estate. For instance, if the spouse predeceased the person, the estate might be divided equally among the children; if the person's parents are still alive, they might share in the estate, or get the whole thing if there were no children. If there were no parents or children, brothers and sisters might be next in line.

It seems a little odd that Eva would not be claiming in her own right rather than her son's (Archibald's nephew Arthur). From the info here so far, we can't tell what the basis of Arthur's claim was and I doubt that the newspaper article would say anything.

It's possible that Archibald named a beneficiary when he set up the annuity. (In Canada, for instance, I can do that when I set up a registered retirement savings plan: if I died while there was still money in the plan, it would go to the beneficiary and not to my estate, in the same way as life insurance.) He might well have named his nephew. In that case, I don't know why there would be any dispute, of course. So more likely the issue was just who was entitled to his estate generally, but again, I would have thought siblings before nephews.

You might want to find out what the law of intestate succession was in England at the time. Aha:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intestacy
In England and Wales the Intestacy Rules have been uniform since 1925 ...
Bad luck; the deaths were in 1924.

I'm not clear on the timing of all this, but if the report is from 1926, it might seem to relate to the claim made by Maria's father, i.e. the Langtons were disputing his claim on the basis that Maria predeceased Archibald.

[avm228]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intestacy
In England and Wales the Intestacy Rules have been uniform since 1925 ...

This may be a reference to s184 of the Law of Property Act 1925 which created a presumption that in cases of simultaneous death the younger person survived the elder.  For deaths before that came into force, as in this case, the Court had to investigate the details of the injuries and other relevant circumstances in order to make a determination as to who survived whom.

N.B. The Times' reports of the survivorship proceedings show that it was submitted to the Court that it was not just a question of who died first as between A.J. and his wife - the timing of uncle George's death was also said to be of great significance because "under the will of his uncle George, Mr A.J. Sproston was entitled, if he survived his uncle, to one-half of his residuary estate, amounting to between £4,000 and £5,000".

The situation in relation to George's will is interesting.  Probate was granted on his estate of some £16,745 on 28 January 1925, but he was later treated as having died intestate as to at least part of his estate, according to a Treasury Solicitor notice in The Times of 26 March 1927 (which refers to a Court order made on 25 November 1925).

[JaneyCanuck]

Aha, I had wondered whether it was really George's estate that was in issue; forgot to mention.

I would have thought that intestacy and survivorship were separate issues though.

[avm228]

I would have thought that intestacy and survivorship were separate issues though.

Separate but not necessarily unconnected. If the residuary legatee fails to survive the testator, the residue of the estate falls to be treated under the intestacy rules.

So if a hypothetical testator provides in his will "I leave £100 each to A, B and C, and the remainder of my estate to D" then if D predeceases the testator the will fails as to the residue and intestacy comes into it.

Added: oh I see what you meant - re the Wiki entry.  Yes, that'll be a reference to the Administration of Estates Act 1925. Sorry.