Hi, I'm looking for an Arthur White, who was born around 1896. His father was Frederick Albert White and he had a 2 older brothers George Henry and Walter, and a much younger sister Ellen. In the 1911 England Census, they lived in Canning Town with the Hall family (widow Jessie Hall and her children and grandchildren). He married my great-grandmother and on the register entry it said Jessie Hall was his mother, but she couldn't have been, and also his father was a widower. So his mother is unknown to me.
So, my great-grandmother was Scottish and lived in Falkirk, which is in Stirlingshire/Central Scotland. She had a child age 16 in 1916, father not around. In 1918 she then had a second illegitimate child, father's name not given. She then got married in 1919 to Arthur White. She seemed to be living with Arthur at the time, along with her father and sister. Arthur was a dock worker, as her father was at that time. It's not known if Arthur was the father of the second child born in 1918. However, Arthur seems to have disappeared, and my great-grandmother went on to live with and have other children with another man, and common knowledge was that this man was her husband.
Arthur was from Canning Town, and I don't understand how he managed to end up in Scotland, unless dock workers were somehow migrant? Or he just got on a ship and ended up there? I don't know if he fathered one or more children with my great-grandmother. A third child was registered under his name, and then under the name of the new 'husband'. I can't find a record of a divorce in Scotland. The marriage with Arthur wasn't a church wedding, it was a declaration in front of witnesses and seemed to be an 'irregular marriage' by Sheriff's warrant, whatever that means.
Four years later, Arthur went on to marry someone called Rose Amelia Bartlett in 1923 in Canning Town. On the family tree that I found, there are no further details of Arthur, and his wife Rose went on to marry someone else. Arthur is being very elusive and I'm having trouble finding any other details of him or his family. Unfortunately, I can't access online the birth record of the third child from Scottish records, to see if he was ever named as the father. My mother knew all about the man that my great-grandmother went on to live with and thought that they were married - they weren't - and had never heard of Arthur White. My grandmother would have known though, because it was on her marriage register entry, that her mother had been married to Arthur White, with absolutely no mention of the second 'husband' (he was not a nice man apparently).
Does anyone have any knowledge of the Whites, particularly Arthur, or dock-workers in the 1910s - 1920s? I would love to find out what happened to him. He might have been in and out the workhouse as a child. Any information or advice would be much appreciated.
Cheers, Momo
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Topic: Arthur White born around 1896 (Read 1432 times)