Christchurch Union Workhouse, Southwark - COMPLETED

[jonw65]

Nothing that involves Edgar should surprise anyone!
The Llewellyns have a Frank King, 16, "born England" boarding with them.
According to some trees, Edgar had a son called Francis born 1854. Is that right?
Is it possible that Frank was Francis Spooner/King?
Though they don't seem to have him in any census at all.
Anyway, it's a rather bizarre coincidence.

[tazzie]

I have read them, tazzie ... I started them!

Bit by bit I have been piecing his remarkable story together ... and jon has given vast amounts of assistance in that.

Now I'm moving on to his wife ... I didnt' SAY that, but jon clearly figured it out 

 I saw they were yours and posted incase someone else was following the thread. It's full of twists and turns and there's load of info. But as you say his birth is so elusive no clear sign.

Tazzie

[jbml]

Nothing that involves Edgar should surprise anyone!

Indeed: my narrative biography of him is now a Word document running to 9 pages with 59 footnoted references, and there are still gaps that need filling!

The Llewellyns have a Frank King, 16, "born England" boarding with them.
According to some trees, Edgar had a son called Francis born 1854. Is that right?
Is it possible that Frank was Francis Spooner/King?
Though they don't seem to have him in any census at all.
Anyway, it's a rather bizarre coincidence.

Francis Spooner, born at 23 Arlington Street, Clerkenwell on 15 October 1854 registered London, Clerkenwell 1854 Q4 volume 1B page 463. I have his birth certificate in front of me as I type. Son of Edgar Spooner, tailor of 23 Arlington Street Clerkenwell and Elizabeth Spooner formerly Escott. So no doubt that the attribution is correct.

(Is it worth noting at this point that my count of Edgar's children is up to 16 now?)

I THINK I may have found Edgar in the 1861 census (under a false name and with a very much younger lady to whom he is not married, plus 4 year old Thomas, my great great grandfather) but Francis isn't there with them. I've no idea as yet where Francis is in 1861.

I was thinking that Francis must have died and was planning on searching for a record ... but your 16 year old lodger (in the 1871 census) does look awfully like it might be him. Can you give me the census trail details for your Llewellyns as I think it bears further investigation, and is certainly worth noting as a strong possibility.

(I bet anybody else working backwards on Frank King who has got as far as your census lodger is going to be totally stumped as to further progress as it will never occur to them to look for a birth of Francis Spooner ... unless he has named Edgar as his father on his marriage certificate ... but evne then he's probably named him as Edgar King. I know that Thomas King Spooner took care to refer to his father as Edgar King until after he had died.)

[jonw65]

Francis Spooner, born at 23 Arlington Street, Clerkenwell on 15 October 1854 registered London, Clerkenwell 1854 Q4 volume 1B page 463. I have his birth certificate in front of me as I type. Son of Edgar Spooner, tailor of 23 Arlington Street Clerkenwell and Elizabeth Spooner formerly Escott. So no doubt that the attribution is correct.

Hi
I am getting the picture now (I think)
So Francis was a son of our missing Elizabeth.
I would say that in 1861 it looks like he may be with his younger brother Thomas at the Shoreditch Industrial School in South Weald, Essex.
Frank Spooner, 6 7
Thomas Spooner, 4
It says they were both born in Shoreditch, but that info could be wrong.

The trees say Francis went to New Zealand, like his father.
Francis King is in the NZ papers re the death of Edgar in 1884
Poor Old Man. — Mr Francis King supplies the following information to the New Zealand Herald respecting Mr Edgar King, who was recently drowned at Dunedin : — " Mr Edgar King arrived in Auckland by the ship Wellington on the 2nd of January, 1882...
Bit of a scroll down
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ST18840519.2.8?end_date=31-12-1884&items_per_page=10

The Llewellyn census trail
I forgot they are recorded as Lewellyn in Bishopsgate 1871
Piece 416 folio 20 page 34
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VBDR-VKN

They were at the same address back in 1861 (Llewellyn)

[jbml]

Wait ... what? FRANCIS went to New Zealand too?? I only had Theresa and John in New Zealand.

I'm not sure about Frank King at the Shoreditch Industrial School in 1861, though ... if you look in the 1871 census there's ANOTHER 16 year old Frank King who WAS born in Shoreditch, so I think that's more likely to be the one. More to the point, it wasn't until Edgar married Elizabeth Morgan in 1863 that the Spooners became Kings.

I've found your Llewellyns in 1871 ... I wonder what the difference between a lodger and a boarder was? I'm guessing a boarder was a minor who they were looking after and acting in loco parentis; whereas a lodger, if a minor, had a parent present.

[jonw65]

Hi
Ah, but they are Spooner in South Weald in 1861.
I got Frank's age wrong though (sorry, it's getting late), which is why I couldn't find him on FS.
He is 7 and FS have them as Spomer!
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M749-SF5
and
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M749-SFR
Jon

[jbml]

So you've got both Francis and Thomas at the industrial school in 1861 have you?

(I don't have FamilySearch ... only FindMyPast).

That rather knocks my "false name in 1861" on the head ... so it's back to the drawing board for identifying both Edgar AND Elizabeth in 1861. Ho hum ...

I think I may have the youngest child Elizabeth in 1861, too ... 2 year old patient E. S. in Great Ormande Street hospital. So if you're right and I'm right we've accounted for all the children and it's just the parents still to find (JUST???)

[jonw65]

It's probably Spomer on findmypast, as FS take most of their census transcripts from them (but not I think 1871, and 1881 is the transcript originally done by the LDS)
It may not be them, I can't see any records available to tell us more. But it's a possibility. Don't give up on your false name theory yet!
Some bits of the 1861 census are missing. Edgar reappears anyway, but his wife Elizabeth is a problem. Tazzie is working on it!

[jbml]

Right.

One possibility for Elizabeth in the 1861 census is 46 year old E. S., occupation wife, shown in the Peckham House Asylum for Lunatics. (If that's her then she's aged 25 years since the 1851 census ... but 1851 is the census where the enumerator has turned "Som. Taunton" for place of birth into "Hants, Southampton" ... so I wouldn't put it past him to turn 31 for age into 21 either. It very definitely DOES say 21 on the enumerator's schedule ... but that's not to say it was on the return. And we know that Elizabeth's literacy was marginal at best. When she married in 1849 she signed the register, but when she registered John's birth on 17 January 1861 she made her mark. So the hand in which she entered her age on the return may have been difficult for the enumerator to construe.)