Aren’t you all lovely...and Rosie99...bless your heart...As you probably saw I was looking into thus lot a few years ago, but then ill health stopped me from doing any of thus. I am back now with a vengeance and most of what you lovely people have written I have already discovered. It was the bit about the drowning that I wanted to research more! As Josey said, it could well be possible he deserted them and that is a nice story.
This information regarding the drowning cane from cousins in the US. There were the 4 children, my gt Granny Margaret, Alice, Will and George. Alice never had children and the two boys left fir the US c1914. I managed to track down their descendants a couple if years ago.
The two families, that if Will and that if George have two different stories. One us that he committed suicide, the other is the drowning story. Now, apparently Alice, the sister is the one who showed a newspaper cutting to the nephew. I did find an Alexander Rowland amongst the Royal Humane Society archives as suggested by Chris Doran earlier. He died whilst attempting a rescue and the dates are about right too. I wonder if the clipping just said Mr Rowland, and it just became legend.
Granny always told us that they were in Barnardos, but there is no record of them there, I think saying they were in and out of the workhouse was probably embarrassing for her. I have found them in and out of St Saviours for April and May 1896, just after their mother died. She definitely died there and I have the death cert. Her bay, Charlotte died 3 weeks later. It was just after that, that they ended up fling in to St Saviours Union as a family, then they seemed to go their separate ways about 14th May. There is a William Rowland of the right age that is popping up there over the years right into the early 1900’s, and if he did abandon them that could well be him, but I guess we will never know. Just thought it might be an idea asking in here. I know the children were with the Stride family in Mayfield by 1901, it was his death that I was really interested in...thank you all so much...you are amazing!
