Frederick Ernest SCHILLING
Frederick died on the 4th of October 1921 at the young age of 26 – so was born about 1895.
The Government Record Office (GRO) provided more details – his birth was registered in the September quarter (July, August, September), 1894 in Lambeth and his mother’s maiden name was Fitzgerald.
His Parents
Sarah Fitzgerald and Henry Edward Schilling were married on 4th February 1883 in The Church of the Sacred Heart in Lambeth. The marriage certificate shows that his father, Peter Joseph Schilling, was a baker born in Germany and her father, Michael Fitzgerald, a labourer, born in County Kerry, Ireland.
One witness was Caroline Schilling – Henry’s sister. She is on the 1881 census for Lambeth with her father, Peter, 51, a master baker, born in Germany. Her mother, Sarah, is 45 and was born in Southwark. They married in the March quarter 1855 in Southwark. As a point of interest, the 1851 Census shows Peter, a journeyman baker working for a master baker, as born in Reine, Prussia. Did he come here because of the Russian Pogroms of the 19th century? Maybe.
1891 – 1901
The 1891 census records Frederick’s older living siblings – Henry, Elizabeth (baptised at St George’s Cathedral, Southwark) and Joseph age 2 (see footnotes). Their father, also Henry, is 27, a coal porter, born in Lambeth. Sarah, his wife is 29 and was born in Peckham. Coal porter was a hard, dirty, physical job moving coal sacks from barges to factory in a dusty atmosphere with a likelihood of respiratory disease.
By the 1901 census his father had died (in 1895), and his widowed mother was a charwoman with three children to support – Henry 16, Elizabeth 14 and Frederick 6. Joseph is not there. I could not find his death so maybe he was staying elsewhere on census night. Life must have been hard for all of them. There are no notes to suggest any health problems for Frederick. His mother died in 1908.
Frederick admitted to hospital
In 1909 I found that age 14 and of the Catholic Faith, he was admitted to hospital from 984, Garrett Lane, Tooting – at one time the longest road in the country! As numbering has been changed over the years, the present 984 does not relate.
By the 1911 census, a Marriott family was living at that address. Fortunately his aunt Alice (wife of his elder brother Henry Edward Schilling) gave the authority details of where the family had lived for the last few years.
As you can see, the Wandsworth Union demanded payment from Lambeth Parish:
No details of the reason for his admission were recorded though the notes suggest permanent admission to a male ward. The word permanent does rather suggest something seriously amiss with this young man.
Alice’s husband, Henry Edward was born 1884 in Peckham, Elizabeth Caroline was born 1885 at Lambeth and Robert William was born 1891 at 7 Alfred Place.
She recalls they lived for some years in Guiness Buildings in Peabody Square but moved to other addresses. These were needed so that the appropriate union/s could be charged for Frederick’s care. She mentioned another son – Robert William born in 1891 who had been sent to a Catholic school in Orpington by Lambeth board of Guardians (an elected authority who ran the poor law union which included workhouses). This suggests he, too, needed care. It seems various members of the family qualified for outside support, especially after both parents had died.
Two years later the census recorded Frederick, age 16, born in Lambeth and a British subject, as a patient at Brook Street Infirmary, Lambeth from where he was sent to Horton Asylum, but I cannot find his final transfer – to Long Grove.
FOOTNOTES
Joseph Schilling on 1891 census– I found the following two births with Fitzgerald as their mother’s maiden name, but neither record seems to match the census.
Child born 1887 and registered as George Joseph, sadly died later that year age 2. Another son, Philip Joseph was born June Quarter 1887 but he died in December the same year.
Frederick’s sister Elizabeth went to America and married, had a family and died in 1960.
5/09/1960. The Capital Journal, Salem, Oregon.
Robert William married in 1920. The marriage certificate originally had his name as ‘Shilling’ – a note in the margin – amended by the vicar to Schilling!
The Guiness Trust was set up in 1890 to provide clean, affordable housing for the poor and destitute. They were five 5-storey blocks providing heated club rooms, hot water and bathing attendants. The Peabody buildings (1876) – where Sarah died – were another similar set-up for the poor.
I wondered where Frederick’s surname came from and AI told me:
The surname Schilling is primarily of German, Dutch, and Ashkenazic Jewish origin, with meanings derived from currency, nicknames, and geography.